Home > Trip Reports > July 7, 2012, Silver Peak

July 7, 2012, Silver Peak

7/7/12
WA Snoqualmie Pass
5735
13
Posted by snoqpass on 7/8/12 9:22am
Still good turns to be had



You guys left just a little bit too early.  One of the snow skaters doing his imitation of a human bowling ball down one of the west facing chutes.  Thankfully he narrowly missed going into any of the holes that have opened up around the rocks :)

Was quiet up there yesterday. But sadly, some butthead exploded some sort of firework the day before (on the 7th) which frightened off some poor dog that was still lost as of yesterday evening (the 8th). Here is a link to a thread which includes a description of the dog, a link to a photo, and the phone number of the owner who was up there looking for the dog last evening. Way not cool. If the person who lit the fuse reads this, perhaps they will atone by calling the number to find out if the dog is still lost, and if so, helping with the hunt...

The snow had melted a fair bit in just the two days since Friday, but there was still plenty of cover for folks looking for turns up in the basins, with not a terrible walk required to get there. Looked like that snowmo must have endured wear and tear from all the rock, dirt, and shrubbery that it had to drive over to get to the continuous snow (we were noting its tracks yesterday).

Just heard from the guy who we met while he was hunting for the dog yesterday - they just found the dog a short while ago. It had finally returned to their parking spot and curled up under the car while he and his buddy were off hunting around the area for it. He's now busy taking down all the flyers he'd posted.

author=ND link=topic=25320.msg106999#msg106999 date=1341853703]
You guys left just a little bit too early.  One of the snow skaters doing his imitation of a human bowling ball down one of the west facing chutes.  Thankfully he narrowly missed going into any of the holes that have opened up around the rocks :)

From what I heard he tried to imitate The Man Who Skied Down Everest

author=snoqpass link=topic=25320.msg107030#msg107030 date=1341884764]
From what I heard he tried to imitate The Man Who Skied Down Everest


"The bergschrund!!!!!!!"

author=Jim Oker link=topic=25320.msg107017#msg107017 date=1341869381]
Was quiet up there yesterday. [...] The snow had melted a fair bit in just the two days since Friday, but there was still plenty of cover for folks looking for turns up in the basins, with not a terrible walk required to get there.


I made a failed attempt to get up there this eve, but ran out of time after too much route-finding and a longer-than-expected walk from the car.  What is the best way to get up there right now?  Two weeks ago, you could skin straight from the road through the meadow and on up.

There are two competing theories.

One: park by the PCT, walk the trail until it crosses first creek, head up through woods toward basins.

Two: drive over pass and bear left (uphill) on road and drive until you can't drive any more (road end in upper clearcut, or perhaps you don't want to drive over the berm/ditch or else the snow pile you see in front of you) and walk up to the upper logging landing and head into whichever lobe of the basin your prefer from there.

Either way you have a bit of walking to get to continuous snow now. Probably 30-40 ish minutes at a mellow pace getting there from the car either way, routefinding challenges not included.

Great, thanks Jim!

I should add that the "bear left" on the road note is for the first turn you encounter, There are a few more forks between there and that upper logging platform and I haven't memorized them all so can't give blow-by-blow, but I think it works fine if you keep choosing the more uphill options. You do end up doing a slightly annoying bit of traversing back and forth on long road switchbacks but it's over pretty quickly. And the view is pretty nice for a road through an old clearcut.

heres a few photos from july 8th
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11723786@N06/sets/72157630530188322/

we did'nt have skis (mabee should post at WTA or NW hikers!) but does give good images of ski conditions!

As of yesterday, (cars with good ground clearance) can make it to the top of the meadow.
A short walk from the turn around yielded continuous snow coverage except in one spot to the top.

Nice! A few of those ditches definitely require confidence in where the bottom of your car is...

author=watsonskipsmith link=topic=25320.msg107095#msg107095 date=1342032013]
we did'nt have skis (mabee should post at WTA or NW hikers!) but does give good images of ski conditions!

Me thinks the ski poles and the great pics qualifies you. ;)
Thanks for the great visual coverage update.

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2012-07-08 16:22:51