May 13, 2009, Tatoosh

Wonderful weather and scenery. Early start from Reflection Lake up to Castle saddle. The south facing Butter Creek runs were just starting to corn up a bit so I headed down. I climbed out of the basin heading east for the low point on the Foss-Unicorn ridge. It was early and frozen enough that ski crampons were helpful. Climbed up Unicorn (had to boot up to the saddle), a few laps in the upper Unicorn basin, and out to the road. The Stevens Canyon road is plowed to the Snow lake trailhead. Don€™t count on hitchhiking, at least on a week day. I saw no cars on the walk back to Reflection. I didn€™t see any other skiers, either.

There was ample evidence of wet snow slides. Some were quite large and ran a long distance, especially on the southwest and west facing slopes below Foss. I assume they occurred yesterday in the heat of the late afternoon. By very early afternoon today the sun affected slopes lower down had softened beyond corn into mush and the sun protected aspects were corning up. I was starting small €œhisser€ slides but nothing large, no wet slabs. Stability until then was bomber. I wouldn€™t want to be the south or west facing slopes in mid or late afternoon.