July 10, Sahale

Climbed and skied to the summit pyramid on Sahale today. Spectacularly beautiful.  My camera is messing up -- hopefully I will be able to retrieve a few of the pictures tomorrow. 

Tennis shoes up most of the switchbacks before I changed to the boots.  Even though I got a fairly late start (9:00 AM), the snow was good and well consolidated except for the upper 400 feet.  By the time I got there, I was a little nervous about the slushy snow that had been baking in the sun all day so decided to pass on the summit scramble and head down.  The upper slopes were manageable with sluff control (the upper 3-4 inches were sliding on every turn).  Things got much better below that and the slopes were quite skiable.  I did an extra lap down the west side of the arm towards Boston Basin, which was quite nice.  Only a few sections that needed to be carried.  Below Cascade Pass, I found the diagonal ramp to the avalanche apron -- mostly still good with only a short carry.  The apron has melted a lot from the report that was posted last week, so there is now probably a 1/4 mile thrash through the slide alder.  But still very worth it.  Going fast though, tomorrow will be good, but wouldn't expect that there will be a ton left in a week.