January 28, 2012, Hurricane

Susan wanted to go somewhere new, and birthday girls get what they want! Friday's forecast for Saturday predicted dry, but the GFS expected scattered showers over the Olympics. GFS won that round.

Spitting rain with moderate wind when we arrived changed to intermittent light rain, warming temperatures, and gusts to 40+ by afternoon. N-facing pow looked good, skied heavy on our first wee test run. Rain on 6-8" of dry blower created arduous trailbreaking on the trip back to the skintrack. Even with fresh skin wax, we frequently had to stop to excavate unliftable skis. 2+ hours and 300 vf later, with unhappy knees and the prospect of continued trailbreaking if we took another lap, we happily headed for the barn.

Got nothing moving snow-wise; blower-to-new bond was surprisingly good. Q2/3 shears in the new while trailbreaking. Dropped a man-sized cornice out of curiosity with no result.

Odyssey Books in PA was a fun stop. Visitor Center shop has a moderately good sale on Patagonia base layers/half-zip thin puffy things.

Going back, but with better weather!