April 20, 2005, Mt. Pilchuck
4/20/05
WA Cascades West Slopes Central
2080
1
What a difference a month makes! Last time I went up Pilchuck back in March (before the new snow), we left our skis in the car and just hiked. This time we were skinning almost continuously from the get go.
Leaving the car at 4:20 we worked our way up the "road" hiker's left of the trail. By midway the snow was deep, deep mush. I switched to carrying my skis once we intersected the well-compacted trail while my partner continued skinning to the summit. We arrived at about 6:30 (quite a bit more time than usual), enjoyed the views, then took off down our line of ascent. We opted to stay out of the SE gully finding the deep, loose, wet snow too threatening to take a chance on the steeper lines. The mush was fun to ski and a few small pops off knolls and over tiny creek meltouts kept it entertaining.
Not bad for an after work jaunt.
Leaving the car at 4:20 we worked our way up the "road" hiker's left of the trail. By midway the snow was deep, deep mush. I switched to carrying my skis once we intersected the well-compacted trail while my partner continued skinning to the summit. We arrived at about 6:30 (quite a bit more time than usual), enjoyed the views, then took off down our line of ascent. We opted to stay out of the SE gully finding the deep, loose, wet snow too threatening to take a chance on the steeper lines. The mush was fun to ski and a few small pops off knolls and over tiny creek meltouts kept it entertaining.
Not bad for an after work jaunt.