26 Mar 2011, - Snoqualmie Middle Fork loop

Skied the middle fork descent off of the East peak of Snoqualmie mountain yesterday.  We started in the Alpental lot and leapfrogged with a few slot bound folks on the phantom.  But after sneaking around the corner we quickly had cave ridge and the east peak to ourselves.  Each shelf down the middle fork had a little bit different snow quality, but it was all great skiing.  In some places there was a hard layer about a foot down with a dirty bond to the new snow. But after numerous ski cuts on rollers and other suspect terrain features, nothing budged, cracked, or moved at all. 

Below about 4200 to our turnaround at 3400 the snow deteriorated quickly - heavy, unconsolodated, etc.  We toured back up thunder creek basin to the bottom of the slot and crooked, and from there we decided to head towards snow lake instead of the typical exit notch out of the basin.  We found surprisingly good skiing through the trees down to the lake.  Took the popular path up snow lake divide and headed back to the car via the alpental traverse.  On and off snow, wind and minimal blue made for a great day. 

Note - the snow on the middle fork side was getting a bit thin at 3400 making travel a bit difficult - lots of rocks, trees, and bumps to navigate around. So it you plan this tour expect the exit to get a bit more challenging.

Here's a shot in the middle fork and another from our low point looking west down the middle fork drainage.