February 26, 2005, Where were all the skiers?

Woke up a bit groggy after doing five grand of fine week old fluff above Rainy Lake on Friday.  It was snowing in Mazama Saurday morning...Heavily.   As we drove up the pass it became apparent that it wasn't going to stay open all day so we pulled into the Cutthroat Lake pull out.  There was already 12++ inches in the pullout.  Luckily there was a lone wolf out ahead of us breaking trail.  Sometimes a gentleman's start to the day pays.  We caught the wolf just before the lake when he was turning around without acheiving any turns.  The snow was comming down relentlessly all day but we kept on climbing slowly towards cutthroat pass.  We started to hear avalanches going off all around the valley in the afternoon.  Real rippers by the sound.  By 3-PM we were still a grand below the pass and trudging through 2++ ft of fresh snow.  Time to go back so we began descenging through the trees back into the valley floor.  I had my first snorkeling session of the year.  What difference a day makes.  The south slopes we were on were probably bare the day before judging by some of the scapings my submerged skis encountered.  Nick let off a nice sluff in the trees and got sucked into it but survived unscathed.   We encountered our skin track at the valley floor almost filled in.  I hooked my dog Maggee up for a little ski-joring sessions for the way out and she litterally pulled our sorry asses out the trail to our awaiting cars which had accumlated another 12++ inches while we were gone.  The pass was closed just as I had thought, plowed shut right at the Cutthroat Lake pullout.  Down below a WSDOT maintenace crew woman was waiting for us at the gate so she could lock it and close the pass behind us.  I have to hand it to the DOT, they plowed up to the Cutthroat pullout and waited past 6PM for us to come out.