April 21, 2012, Chair Peak Environs

Wasn't going to post anything but I can't sleep. Eric, Casey and I had a fun impromptu tour last weekend that has me still smiling.

Left Seattle pretty early on Saturday with a plan A that we quickly aborted once the sun began to reveal how brightly she intended to shine. East aspects were sloughing naturally by 8 am.  So we quickly came up with a Plan B: traverse from under the North Face of Chair Peak to Malakwa Point and try some north westerly aspects.

We'd all looked up at Malakwa Point several times while circumnavigating Chair, and Martin had said that traversing to it was a nice little alpine adventure, so it seemed like a good thing to do.

The CREW, with Casey fresh from Vietnam minus a tooth:



I haven't skied much this year. Almost forgot how beautiful sunshine and snow can be:







We picked our way along the ridge to Malakwa Point, but when it became obvious that we'd need to do a bit of mixed climbing to gain the high point, we decided to ski what looked to be a fun little line to the west. The idea being that we'd then ski up to Malakwa pass and climb the face we wanted to ski.

E$ on the ridge,



then having some fun:



Casey's a good skier:



Some more $, with our line up and out of sight to the looker's right of the prominent rock buttress:



Casey liked it:



The climb to Malakwa point was super fun. Perfect step kicking snow, as the sun hadn't yet worked her magic. I realized later that my lens protector had fogged up so my photos don't do near justice to how cool it was to hike into the sun as Casey blazed a trail for us:



Gotta post of photo of E$ 'cause he's just so gosh darn good lookin:



From the top we had a nice view of our traverse and where we'd skied:



Casey from the top,



of this:



The skin to Bryant Col was brutal and beat us all down quite nicely. But what a great day! Snoqualmie Pass delivers yet again. Thanks Casey and Eric for making it happen.