May 22, 2005, Chinook Pass (Naches Pk. loop)

Set one's expectations low and you're bound to be pleasantly surprised. Given the weather forecast I had to wonder why I was packing for a ski tour with a friend of mine and my soon-to-be 7-year-old son. However, with a sucker hole big enough to last through the morning and into the early afternoon, the answer was clear--blue sky, a location new to me, snow from the car, and a chance to get my son into the backcountry.

We parked on the west side of Chinook Pass and began skinning counterclockwise around Naches Peak. My son followed the skin track in his scaled cross-country skis, but switched to hiking when he grew tired of slipping on the solid morning snow. When the snow grew too thin we all hiked along the nearly-melted out trail, but were all able to switch back to skis for the last section before reaching the slopes on the east side.

Here we had a snack, enjoyed the scenery as the clouds began to thicken then switched my son to his alpine skis for the ride down. I marched up to the base of some rocks to get a few turns out of the steepest part of the slope through a short chute. The surface snow cut away on my first turn over a small wind lip, but the slide was slow and short so of no concern. Snow conditions were soft and fairly deep with a thin easily breakable crust. My son needed some time to remind himself of how to turn, then enjoyed shifting his weight side to side making small, quick turns through the mush.

Wanting to keep it fun for my son, we opted not to yo-yo and completed our circumnavigation of Naches Peak by skiing out the tracks set by those who parked east of the pass where we finished the day with the snowball fight Eric had been planning since the morning.

I found Chinook Pass to be an enjoyable area with many possibilities for future outings and a good place to continue exposing my son to the joys of the backcountry.

BTW--anyone know the smallest boot size Fritschi bindings go down to? I haven't found the right equipment set-up for getting into the bc with kids yet. We've done the boot-it when the snow was solid and the xc/alpine ski combo on this trip, but each has it's limitations (see related thread under Random Tracks if you have any ideas to share on this subject).