January 1, 2005, Washington Pass

quickly forgetting all my qualms about the use of a snowmobile, jumped at the opportunity to ride one to wa pass. as we put-putted at about 10mph up the road, wondering if it will let us down, and inhaling ample amounts of gasoline fumes, i had ample opportunity to enjoy the scenery...

arrived stiff and light-headed at wa pass and hopped on a fine track heading up-valley towards the exit from the birthday tour. fine fine powdery snow, the like of which is hard to find west of the crest, not enough to cover big boulders yet, but covering the earlier crust quite well. conditions seems very stable, only saw one minor sluff from some rocks. the bowls on skier's left around copper pass looked very inviting and untracked, but we followed the skin track towards kangaroo ridge, where we enjoyed a fine descent thru larch glades.

went back up and traversed ne for a while until we came to a gully going all the way to the bottom of the valley which we had spied from below. yes, it had death cookies galore, but they were mostly hidden under almost a foot of new, and while their sudden discovery lead to rather comical results, at least for the onlookers if not for the skier, we had a marvelous ski down, with only minimal effort required to get back to the highway (at least compared to the tree trashing done 2 days previous at silver star that is...)