December 5, 2004, Skyline Ridge
12/5/04
WA Stevens Pass
2008
1
David W. and I headed up to Skyline Ridge on what was his innaugural backcountry tour. The guy's a natural and I think he's hooked since we've already made tenative touring plans for next weekend.
Yes, to the report. There is snow at Steven's but it's no mystery that more is needed. I've found that sharpening my edges with a file is more effective than doing it by skiing over boulders.
There was about 10" of what is some of the best snow I've encountered in the Cascades...light and fluffy goodness. Was it the new fat skis or the fluff? Both, I'm sure.
The new fluff is on top of about a 4" layer of consolidated that was well bonded to a thick rain crust below. As far as we saw, things were fairly stable with no evidence of slides in the area.
We skied from the ridge above Skyline Lake down through the boulder field towards Tye Peak. The boulder field needs a few more feet of coverage to fill in the holes and make it for safe and consistent skiing. Today it offered the occasional free edge sharpening and base gouging. ;) But we pay good money for this stuff to use it right!?
Synopsis: the skinning was great, skiing good at points but more coverage is need to really let them run. The lake is filling in but we stayed right next to the shore and had no problems crossing there.
Yes, to the report. There is snow at Steven's but it's no mystery that more is needed. I've found that sharpening my edges with a file is more effective than doing it by skiing over boulders.
There was about 10" of what is some of the best snow I've encountered in the Cascades...light and fluffy goodness. Was it the new fat skis or the fluff? Both, I'm sure.
The new fluff is on top of about a 4" layer of consolidated that was well bonded to a thick rain crust below. As far as we saw, things were fairly stable with no evidence of slides in the area.
We skied from the ridge above Skyline Lake down through the boulder field towards Tye Peak. The boulder field needs a few more feet of coverage to fill in the holes and make it for safe and consistent skiing. Today it offered the occasional free edge sharpening and base gouging. ;) But we pay good money for this stuff to use it right!?
Synopsis: the skinning was great, skiing good at points but more coverage is need to really let them run. The lake is filling in but we stayed right next to the shore and had no problems crossing there.
Well the good news is its better than last weekend, but the bad news is we still need some more. Conditions off the cat-track are lossely consolidated powder over a punchy crust. On steeper terrain, the new snow is sloughing off atoop the ground cover. I went up to the top of skyline ridge above moonlight bowl, and the descent back to the trail was fairly treacherous. We need some consolidation of the existing pack and some new. Hopefully both these things will happen this week and we can get skiing somewhere besides Ranier or Baker..
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