Feb 26, 2011, Hurricane Ridge
2/26/11
WA Olympics
4557
11
I had been thinking about a mountain summit in the Olympics, but the avy convinced us to stay away from steep open slopes. As velillen and I pulled into the lot by the lodge who did we park next to but overthhills and Sidnie! Off we toured together. My car buddy must have thought we three oldsters were lunatics, but we just had months of catching up to do. The day flew by as we gossiped, joked and critiqued each others' kick turns. ;D
Conditions were scary but excellent. Toilet Bowl north was so deep we could barely make forward progress. The huge snow totals on top of the low coverage have renewed the tree well hazard, as I found out. TB south had "breakable crust lite", fun to punch turns through but not worth repeating. Below the ridge just past the end of the summer road we found the goods: untracked 20-30 deg. with plenty of tree anchors. There was an unstable layer about 18" down, Q3-2. As I was doing the compression test arm drops, overthhills leaned on the shovel blade with his full upper body weight and disintegrated the whole column, saying, "See? It's okay".
Thanks for the efficiency lesson Michael!!! ::)
Then we had 2 great runs through through knee-to-thigh-deep fluff, chest and face shots galore. Best pow I've had in a year (shows how poorly my free time lines up with big storms).
SKINNING ADVICE
If you can't keep up
Non-stop babble and banter
You're having less fun!
Conditions were scary but excellent. Toilet Bowl north was so deep we could barely make forward progress. The huge snow totals on top of the low coverage have renewed the tree well hazard, as I found out. TB south had "breakable crust lite", fun to punch turns through but not worth repeating. Below the ridge just past the end of the summer road we found the goods: untracked 20-30 deg. with plenty of tree anchors. There was an unstable layer about 18" down, Q3-2. As I was doing the compression test arm drops, overthhills leaned on the shovel blade with his full upper body weight and disintegrated the whole column, saying, "See? It's okay".
Thanks for the efficiency lesson Michael!!! ::)
Then we had 2 great runs through through knee-to-thigh-deep fluff, chest and face shots galore. Best pow I've had in a year (shows how poorly my free time lines up with big storms).
SKINNING ADVICE
If you can't keep up
Non-stop babble and banter
You're having less fun!
Nice to meet up with you and Nick and share the pit work. The bond to the MLK crust was strong on our NW aspect. Hopefully the strength of the bond of all the new snow to the Feb 7 crust will strengthen and we can visit some of the open slopes in the near future. Some of the best Olympic skiing we've seen. Thanks for the Haiku.
A mediocre poem for a good photo is definitely a fair trade :D
Sorry i missed it. Will dream of those turns while i'm having my knee scoped.
Sorry we missed you all,
Glad you found the goods, that slope is a fun ski and more often than not holds good snow. We found similar conditions across the valley. Any aspect which had been exposed to Friday's sun had an unpleasant, but skiable crust. North facing slopes held good powder. If you can excuse a little post jumping, here are a couple pix from our day. ;)
Gary
Glad you found the goods, that slope is a fun ski and more often than not holds good snow. We found similar conditions across the valley. Any aspect which had been exposed to Friday's sun had an unpleasant, but skiable crust. North facing slopes held good powder. If you can excuse a little post jumping, here are a couple pix from our day. ;)
Gary
There's no such thing as too much replying and photo posting!
Where is this place across the valley you referred to?
Where is this place across the valley you referred to?
It was great skiing thats for sure! Just glad the "local" we met had already put in the skin track! And of course Sidnie's critiquing of the guys kick turns at, well, every kick turn we did the whole day made the skin fun.
glad you all had a great pow day!
I've noticed the more I babble, the faster my partners will break trail to get away from me.
I've noticed the more I babble, the faster my partners will break trail to get away from me.
Reading trip reports during lunch time is hit and miss for me. The entire office is quiet....except for me blurting out laughing at the funny things that I read on TAY. This was the third time this lunch break; I had to say something.
Gary and Jan,
Sorry we missed you! It was a good day for powder, but I would rather ski the back side of Maggie's anytime and avoid that flat slog out and back.
Sorry we missed you! It was a good day for powder, but I would rather ski the back side of Maggie's anytime and avoid that flat slog out and back.
wow this sounds like good fun! good work all.
author=telemack link=topic=19908.msg84288#msg84288 date=1298872296]
There's no such thing as too much replying and photo posting!
Where is this place across the valley you referred to?
author=Tangerine link=topic=19908.msg84388#msg84388 date=1298953023]
Gary and Jan,
Sorry we missed you! It was a good day for powder, but I would rather ski the back side of Maggie's anytime and avoid that flat slog out and back.
;D
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