march 22, snoqualmie mt.
3/15/05
WA Snoqualmie Pass
2356
2
so yesterday despite the beautiful sunny weather, i was the official spokesperson for the "crack o' noon club". i left out and hit the snow lake trail at about 1:30. made it to the saddle above the lake and decided to go towards snoqualmie mt. rather than towards chair peak basin. i hadn't been up there in a while and just wanted to poke around and check out the coverage and conditions.
i dug two pits. i didn't actually have an altimeter with me, but from triangulating with map and compass figured i was around 5200ft. the two pits were similar in slope and aspect. pit 1 had a slope of 37degrees and pit 2 was about 33. both showed approx. 5 layers. the top layer was about 5in. of still light fluff from the new that rolled in over the weekend. layer two was about 2in of ice crust. layer three was suprisingly nice. about 18in or so of consolidated soft snow. that sat on a gnarly layer of ice crust about 6in that slowly tapered into the bottom layer of TG. both pits had an aspect of 348degree.
upon a shovel shear test on the first pit revealed a fracture upon entering the shovel after the block had been isolated. it sheared all the way down to the ground layer. this made me wonder and instigated pit two. the second shovel test, on the less steep 33degree, sheared at the same time, once the block was isolated and upon entering the shovel. although this one sheared about 3in. into the third layer of 18in. soft stuff. it was a clean break and inspection seemed to show these crystals to be 1mm or smaller under a scope on a crystal card. the tempature didn't seem to change much between these layers until you got near the bottom warmer layers near the ground.
so anyone coming this way, hope this helps. there seems to still be plenty of worthy skiing up here. you could probably get away with skinning up the last half of the snow lake trail, but probably not for much longer. once you reach the saddle though it's on ;D there didn't seem to be any wind affect where i was, but coud see some scouring and loading over in the chair peak area.
i now have to go pack for my up coming week in tahoe ;D ;D
i dug two pits. i didn't actually have an altimeter with me, but from triangulating with map and compass figured i was around 5200ft. the two pits were similar in slope and aspect. pit 1 had a slope of 37degrees and pit 2 was about 33. both showed approx. 5 layers. the top layer was about 5in. of still light fluff from the new that rolled in over the weekend. layer two was about 2in of ice crust. layer three was suprisingly nice. about 18in or so of consolidated soft snow. that sat on a gnarly layer of ice crust about 6in that slowly tapered into the bottom layer of TG. both pits had an aspect of 348degree.
upon a shovel shear test on the first pit revealed a fracture upon entering the shovel after the block had been isolated. it sheared all the way down to the ground layer. this made me wonder and instigated pit two. the second shovel test, on the less steep 33degree, sheared at the same time, once the block was isolated and upon entering the shovel. although this one sheared about 3in. into the third layer of 18in. soft stuff. it was a clean break and inspection seemed to show these crystals to be 1mm or smaller under a scope on a crystal card. the tempature didn't seem to change much between these layers until you got near the bottom warmer layers near the ground.
so anyone coming this way, hope this helps. there seems to still be plenty of worthy skiing up here. you could probably get away with skinning up the last half of the snow lake trail, but probably not for much longer. once you reach the saddle though it's on ;D there didn't seem to be any wind affect where i was, but coud see some scouring and loading over in the chair peak area.
i now have to go pack for my up coming week in tahoe ;D ;D
stihlfree,
did you happen to get a look at the phantom slide (big one left of the snow lake th), if so, what was the coverage like, is it skiiable ? same question for back side (north that is) of mt snoqualmie.. thanks!
did you happen to get a look at the phantom slide (big one left of the snow lake th), if so, what was the coverage like, is it skiiable ? same question for back side (north that is) of mt snoqualmie.. thanks!
ema, unfortunately nothing skiiable until you get up to the saddle on the trail overlooking the lake. seems like there would be plenty once you head over to the north side of the ridge coming from chair down to cliffs to the lake. i saw some sort of tracks coming down into the lake from the melawka pass side near gem sort of. it was getting near dark and hard to see when i had the most views.
as for snoq. there was nice snow where i was. if you know the cliffs well there's probably a bunch of goods around. kind of like most of the valley ;)
as for snoq. there was nice snow where i was. if you know the cliffs well there's probably a bunch of goods around. kind of like most of the valley ;)
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