May 22, 2010, - ONP - Hurricane Ridge, Lost Bowl
5/22/10
WA Olympics
3612
5
New snow in late May, what a treat! :D
The Wednesday night storm dropped about 8" of new snow at the Ridge, 2 additional inches fell on Friday.
Jan, Jeff, Christine (Mrs. Stormking) and I headed up early on Saturday to see if we could find some lingering late season powder. We decided that the north facing chutes in Lost Bowl and the Bowling alley were our best bets. After a quick climb up Maggies to the ridge, we found that that a group of skiers had done a very efficient job of tracking out the Bowling Alley on Friday. They had been good enough to leave a couple of nice lines for us though. We were pleasantly surprised by the snow quality. The Wednesday snow had settled some, but had not formed a crust layer. Friday night's snow was light and soft.
On to "Lost Bowl". This area contains several north facing runs which drop into a northwesterly facing drainage. Here we found similar snow conditions to the Bowling Alley, with the exception that the Friday snow was not well bonded and sluffed easily on the steeper slopes. It's low density did not present much of a hazard. We enjoyed 3 great runs down to the bottom of the drainage before warming mid-day temperatures worked their magic on the snow. We were hoping to get one more late season run down the chute Snowbell dubbed "Finders Keepers" earlier in the season. Unfortunately, last week's warm weather had melted out the center of the chute and a rock band made it impassable. We did ski the lower north facing section from the ridge line for our final run.
We skinned back up to the top of the Bowling Alley and survived a challenging descent down southeast facing "Maggies" in boot deep mashed potatoes. As we returned to the truck, it started lightly snowing.
All in all an outstanding late season day in the Olympics!
Here are a few pictures from the day, and a link to some more; http://picasaweb.google.com/GaryJanH/20100522LostBowlHurricaneRidge#
Photo 1: Jeff, Christine and Jan with Vancouver Island in the background.
Photo 2: Christine skiing lower Lost Bowl
Photo 3: The Bailey Range from Sunrise Ridge
Gary
The Wednesday night storm dropped about 8" of new snow at the Ridge, 2 additional inches fell on Friday.
Jan, Jeff, Christine (Mrs. Stormking) and I headed up early on Saturday to see if we could find some lingering late season powder. We decided that the north facing chutes in Lost Bowl and the Bowling alley were our best bets. After a quick climb up Maggies to the ridge, we found that that a group of skiers had done a very efficient job of tracking out the Bowling Alley on Friday. They had been good enough to leave a couple of nice lines for us though. We were pleasantly surprised by the snow quality. The Wednesday snow had settled some, but had not formed a crust layer. Friday night's snow was light and soft.
On to "Lost Bowl". This area contains several north facing runs which drop into a northwesterly facing drainage. Here we found similar snow conditions to the Bowling Alley, with the exception that the Friday snow was not well bonded and sluffed easily on the steeper slopes. It's low density did not present much of a hazard. We enjoyed 3 great runs down to the bottom of the drainage before warming mid-day temperatures worked their magic on the snow. We were hoping to get one more late season run down the chute Snowbell dubbed "Finders Keepers" earlier in the season. Unfortunately, last week's warm weather had melted out the center of the chute and a rock band made it impassable. We did ski the lower north facing section from the ridge line for our final run.
We skinned back up to the top of the Bowling Alley and survived a challenging descent down southeast facing "Maggies" in boot deep mashed potatoes. As we returned to the truck, it started lightly snowing.
All in all an outstanding late season day in the Olympics!
Here are a few pictures from the day, and a link to some more; http://picasaweb.google.com/GaryJanH/20100522LostBowlHurricaneRidge#
Photo 1: Jeff, Christine and Jan with Vancouver Island in the background.
Photo 2: Christine skiing lower Lost Bowl
Photo 3: The Bailey Range from Sunrise Ridge
Gary
Sweet.
Nice work! I was getting drenched on my bike at lower elevations, looks like you made the right choice!
Sounds as if Saturday was the day to get it. :)
cool .. glad you guys found some turns and some fun .. great tr and pix .. makes me want to move back over to the peninsula ..
btw .. what's the status on the road out to obstruction? still lots of snow for skiing? typically they open it around jul 4th .. fm your pix it doesn't look like it this year ..
btw .. what's the status on the road out to obstruction? still lots of snow for skiing? typically they open it around jul 4th .. fm your pix it doesn't look like it this year ..
author=kath link=topic=16731.msg70132#msg70132 date=1274724602]
cool .. glad you guys found some turns and some fun .. great tr and pix .. makes me want to move back over to the peninsula ..
btw .. what's the status on the road out to obstruction? still lots of snow for skiing? typically they open it around jul 4th .. fm your pix it doesn't look like it this year ..
Thanks Kath, it was a fun day. :)
Regarding the Obstruction Point road. The snow survey done by the Park on 5/1/10 at the Cox Valley site measured 110% of average for this date, the Waterhole site measured 135% of average. Since the Park no longer does any plowing on this road, I am guessing it will be mid to late-July before it is open all the way to Obstruction Point. Some years they open it to the gate at Waterhole earlier if it is clear to there. There should be several weeks of good ski touring out towards Obstruction Point unless we get an extended warm weather period.
Gary
Reply to this TR
Please login first: