Feb 23, 2013, Kendall Stump/knob/trees

Four of us decided skinning and skiing trees sounded better than waiting in line at the mall/ski lifts.  Started out skinning through the big trees down low with a fair amount of snow coming down.  While skinning up, we found some slabs moving near tree wells but nothing deeper than a foot.  As we made it up towards the top, the snow continued pretty consistently without any wind at all.  We got to the top of the knob and found some wind with small cornices formed.  The bed surface last night and today's snow was sliding on what seemed to be yesterday's wind slabs but they didn't move for us.  On top we kicked off some small cornices only to find the snow from the last 12 hours moving with nothing under it cracking or making itself noticed.  On the ski down we found deep (1-3') snow that was a great time.  Again, nothing but sluff to deal with.  It did seem to be warming up as we got lower but not sure if this was also happening higher.  We made the tough decision to be content with our great run from the top and headed down to Red Mountain for pizza and beer.  :)

With poor light, lots of snow falling, and too much fun to be had, no photos were taken.  Overall, a very pleasant welcome back to winter powder in the Cascades!