March 27, 2010, Snoqualmie Crooked

Five of us booted/skinned up the phantom, skirted around the corner to cave ridge and headed towards the East peak of Snoqualmie.  Snow coverage through the trees at the bottom of the phantom is pretty meager, and I wouldn't expect much to be left if it rains on it this week.  However, the coverage up high is great, and we found soft skiing down the Crooked.  We had planned on dropping some other north aspects off of the East peak, but the wind was blasting and we weren't comfortable with the middle fork aspects.  Strangely, the wind didn't seem to effect the crooked as much although there were some minor slabby parts near the waterfall. 

Besides an army of mountaineers booting up the sunny south/southeast face of Snoqualmie with ropes ice axes and crampons, we only saw three other parties in the area - a couple groups skied the slot, another preceded us down the crooked.