February 20, 2005, Plummer's Crack (Tatoosh)

Our group of 7 (Skip, Kelvin, Michael, Corrine, Sarah, Sean, and myself) departed from Narada Falls at about 10:30 am, enroute to Plummer Peak in the Tatoosh Range.  Cutting-off from the Pinnacle Pk summer trail route we noticed another skin track headed in the direction of our destination.  After traversing for awhile, we arrived at the base of Plummer Chute (skier's right of Plummer Peak, below the west side of Pinnacle Peak) where we discovered that the track-breaking crew ahead of us was the "geezer patrol"  (Ron J and crew) who had courteously dug a snowpit for us at the bottom of the chute  ;)  Upon seeing this group here, we figured we'd probably found a good ski spot  ;)  
We skinned up to the top of Plummer Peak via the Plummer Chute and NE ridge (sorry Ron for our "Zoro" uptrack if you had planned to ski that line).  Arrived at the top of Plummer just after the clouds dissipated from above, and enjoyed the afternoon sun and views.

Upon descent we temporarily split into 2 separate groups with Corrine, Sarah, and Sean descending our up-track route, and Skip, Michael, Kelvin, and myself scoping out the north-facing direct line down the middle of Plummer Peak (also known as the "Plummer's Crack").
In short the snow was awful (as expected by observations made on the way up) with a 2-to-3-inch thick highly variable breakable wind/sun crust, which made the skiing a bit challenging.  We re-grouped near the bottom of Plummer's chute.

Highlight of the trip:  "Casswipin' the Plummer's Crack" as my group affectionately termed my crash in the central chute of Plummer's Peak.  This wipe-out involved myself skiing into a pocket of soft "sucker snow" about 1/3 of the way down the Plummer's Crack, resulting in loss of balance, a forward summersalt, followed by my biggest backcountry yardsale to date (detached right ski, and departure of my ski googles and right pole); quickly after realizing I couldn't regain my balance and was indeed falling (sliding head first on my back), I impulsively grabbed hold of my left ski pole with both hands and jammed the pole into the slope...fortunately the "ski pole arrest" (combined with mananging to partialy dig my left ski tail into the slope) stopped the fall quickly.  Pausing for a moment (glad to have stopped the fall) I looked downslope and saw, to my horror, my right ski tumbling tip-over-tail down the chute.  As a stroke of luck though, the ski stopped (sticking tip-up of out the slope) just below the narrowest part of the chute, instead of zipping all the way down to Tatoosh Creek or the Nisqually River ;).  So began the ~150-foot downclimb on ~35 degree snow (the surface crust thankfully made for easy and supportive step-kicking).  After retreiving my right ski, I was able to ski the lower part of the slope below the chute (still breakable surface crust) to retrieve my ski googles (Skip had generously retrieved my other ski pole which had stuck into the slope above the "end-of-crash point").

The second-best highlight of the day was skiing down to Tatoosh Creek through thick brush and a narrow gully (lots of side-stepping); actually some of the best snow of the day (~10" of fluff and non wind-affected) was found in the final ~200 vert. feet before reaching the flats at Tatoosh Creek.  We skinned back up to the road through the forest on the opposite side of the creek, arriving back at Narada Falls just after sunset.
(Photos probably to be posted tomorrow).

--Chris

P.S. A variety in sizes of surface hoar crystals were noted on many slopes in the Tatoosh.  The snow in the trees was generally soft, but northeast through northwest aspects around Plummer Peak were highly wind/sun affected, resulting in a highly variable breakable surface crust (generally about 2-to-3 inches thick).  Could be something to watch out for when (if) we ever get additional significant snowfall.