February 20, 2005, N side Chair Peak

Well it sounds like mostr of you had better ski conditions than we did this weekend. I talked two friends into heading up to the north side of Chair Peak on Sunday hoping we'd find at least a little powder left. Not to be. That whole north side is heavily wind scoured. Conditions ranged from firm styrofoam to ice to a sweet, breakable wind crust. I did, however, really enjoy the ascent in the sunshine. And stability was good. I dug a couple of pits at about 5800' on north aspects and found what I took for a wind crust about six inches down and no other significant layers until the rain crust about two feet down. A shovel compression test in each released nothing until the third or fourth good wallop from the shoulder. The only mishap of the day occured halfway down the run when Dan finished a beautiful right turn with a spinning, one-skied, cartwheel and came up short against a bus sized hunk of ice. Wince. We all laughed kind of tentatively and well out of the side of our mouths after we'd made sure he wasn't hurt. Could have been bad. We finally found a little bit of creamy pow on the short (250'?) slope just above Snow Lake. I was ready to yoyo the goods a few times but mutiny was afoot. So we snacked and headed downlake. The drop from the saddle to Source was well refrozen by the time we got there. Which was interesting. The mutineers trudged out the Snow Lake trail, and I did my best not to pop an acl getting down on my soft, skinny skis. The last, shallow slope (east facing) above Source also had great pow and left me grinning all the way out the valley.