April 25, 2005, Silver Peak update

Well, the melt out continues at a furious pace.  I'd say even a 2-wheel drive can make it up FR9070 to Windy Pass now.  Yesterday I was able to drive to with 100 yds of the pass before my truck augered in.  

We banged out the ascent in just under an hour and dropped into to the west face off the ridgeline and skied the line down towards Annette Lake to about the 4,000-ft elevation.  I could not beleive how much the top part had melted out in just one day.  The first few hundred vertical feet were spent side slipping down what little snow remained over the scree land minds.  We did find a very nice line next to the trees to ski that offered up some fine corn.  The snow was pretty wet and we kicked up big rooster tails on the descent.  It kind of felt like water skiing.  

We skinned back up to the actual summit which is all melted out in the south and west aspects but we were able to put skis on at the top and headed down the northest ridge line back to Windy Pass.  A good exploration but a better quality line down from the summit would have been to hit the main couloir off the summit into the basin.

I don't think I'd try the line down to Annette Lake again since I put a lot of character in the bases of my skis yesterday but the rest of Silver is worth going back to escpecially with such easy access.  I might be back there again some evening after work this week.