January 20, 2013, White Salmon Glacier

I skinned, booted, and snowboarded up the White Salmon Glacier yesterday with my girlfriend and a friend of ours.  We made it to the ridge where the WS meets the upper Curtis Glacier and ran into a friend on the way.  Two of our group went up onto the upper Curtis and Hanging Glacier to check the entrance to the NW Couloir but they decided it was not good.  We ended up riding down Winnie's Slide and found conditions to be very firm with variable punchy sections.  The best snow that we found was low down in bottom of the bowl between 3000 and 5000 feet.  I don't think the skiing will be good on the glacier until we get more snow but it might be a good time to get up there for some mountaineering.