March 3, 2013, Chair Peak Circumnav
3/3/13
WA Snoqualmie Pass
1717
1
My good buddy Glacierbrains will shortly be bailing on the PNW to join a research team somewhere near Reno, so we decided to ski whatever there was to ski for the day. Our low expectations just kept getting shattered. I slept in (crying kiddo half the night), but we still managed to make decent time to the North Bend Park and Ride (Safeway) and Public Toilet/WiFi (Starbucks) and get to Lot 4 around 10am. Even starbucks felt like a frenetic ski area that just got a spirit-lifting dump of 6-17" of pow (yep, wind affected). lucky to get a sweet spot right next to the source lake cat track just as a poodle started to make a deposit in our miraculous parking space. ha.
undeterred and without plans we proceeded to source lake under variable skies - sun, fog, clouds, snow, wind. did some community service helping to reorient a snowshoer who understandable walked past source lake without realizing it. the gigantic ripple hills from the previous rain-soaked avi cycle were strange in their smoothed out coat of new snow. took skin track to snow lake saddle. the ski down to snow lake was... variable. west aspect had more wind scouring, so some areas were supportive crust and some were bottomless. overall enjoyable, but we knew we could do better...
the vast expanse of snow lake called us, and we decided to see about this chair peak circumnav for ourselves, or at least ski one of my favorites, melakwa pass. setting a track up to chair peak lake was challenging in the 2-6" of wind-affected slab over bottomless "champagne graupel" with spindrift being sprayed over it in places. hmmm.... would have been a nice ski. little spooky in some places. ripped skins for the handful of turns down to the lake, and quickly broke trail to melakwa pass. the notch and couloir on the SW face of chair peak was looking tasty... anyone have data on that?...
enjoyable ski off the pass towards melakwa lakes at first. would have been nice for mellow laps. cruised to lower lake and had lunch as a large group skied down and headed for melakwa pass. followed their down tracks up to Bryant col and were stoked to find great wall of china trackless, and very glad that we didn't ski to pineapple pass. very good snow in between the buried avi chunder in the upper and lower portions. either filled in or never slid in the middle. very deep and spooky at the crux. some moderate sluffing, but no slab releases. just avalung snorkeling punctuated by hidden by invisible, frozen, avi rubble.
celebrated an expectations-exceeding day and Glacierbrains' last ski day this season in the PNW at source lake with a tasty bomber of hop rod rye ale and a splash of alpenglow.
pics...
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ovrcktu3wdl6rr6/cvKDWw9FNX?m
undeterred and without plans we proceeded to source lake under variable skies - sun, fog, clouds, snow, wind. did some community service helping to reorient a snowshoer who understandable walked past source lake without realizing it. the gigantic ripple hills from the previous rain-soaked avi cycle were strange in their smoothed out coat of new snow. took skin track to snow lake saddle. the ski down to snow lake was... variable. west aspect had more wind scouring, so some areas were supportive crust and some were bottomless. overall enjoyable, but we knew we could do better...
the vast expanse of snow lake called us, and we decided to see about this chair peak circumnav for ourselves, or at least ski one of my favorites, melakwa pass. setting a track up to chair peak lake was challenging in the 2-6" of wind-affected slab over bottomless "champagne graupel" with spindrift being sprayed over it in places. hmmm.... would have been a nice ski. little spooky in some places. ripped skins for the handful of turns down to the lake, and quickly broke trail to melakwa pass. the notch and couloir on the SW face of chair peak was looking tasty... anyone have data on that?...
enjoyable ski off the pass towards melakwa lakes at first. would have been nice for mellow laps. cruised to lower lake and had lunch as a large group skied down and headed for melakwa pass. followed their down tracks up to Bryant col and were stoked to find great wall of china trackless, and very glad that we didn't ski to pineapple pass. very good snow in between the buried avi chunder in the upper and lower portions. either filled in or never slid in the middle. very deep and spooky at the crux. some moderate sluffing, but no slab releases. just avalung snorkeling punctuated by hidden by invisible, frozen, avi rubble.
celebrated an expectations-exceeding day and Glacierbrains' last ski day this season in the PNW at source lake with a tasty bomber of hop rod rye ale and a splash of alpenglow.
pics...
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ovrcktu3wdl6rr6/cvKDWw9FNX?m