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June 8, 2013, Silver slopes

6/8/13
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Posted by silaswild on 6/8/13 6:56am
Great weather, nice sun and breeze, 18 cars, friendly folks aged 9 to 64.  Or was there a younger or older slider?  Excellent corn on west and north aspects, slight sun cupping. Still skin and skiable, tho we did a couple 20' sections of blueberry brushing. No pollen for us.

https://vimeo.com/67966377
This whole thing going on here is really impressive.

pics proved it happened ::)
thanks for the adventurous trip for my little guy!
bF

The next generation has been slaying it


training for Alpental they are!
bF

It appears to me that there is a small village of skiers actively living on the slopes of Silver Peak these days.

:)

[img width=800">https://zoukkg.sn2.livefilestore.com/y2pCdUxglvrzklgJ_1RrfU8XlDk5aKr0cTXfT4TUb3CMMEHoLvSnXkKDcprqUR4e6ZxFWQ3ss-207PhxsqmNncZi7vi088izix8er_j4NodmQvbW2QgHJwGnvgFgraHXxgw/WP_20130608_006.jpg?psid=1" />

Silver Peak Summit interactive panorama (created using a Nokia 920 phone and Photosynth)

(Adding my trip report to the thread)
Road is clear to ~3750’ – maybe 400 meters from the trailhead. Someone was asking about the couloir on Tinkham (I think?) that’s visible from the road up to Windy Pass - it looks too melted out to be worth doing – catch it next season…

Although people were skinning from their cars, I would suggest strapping skis or boards to your pack and hiking on foot maybe .5-.75 miles up Ollalie Meadows before skinning – there was a decent amount of bare path and some bushes to navigate. You *might* be able to go farther down the road and take a long logging road up the meadows that is continuously snow covered, but it might be more trouble than it’s worth (couldn’t tell – was looking at it from the summit).

When you get into Silver Basin, stay right – the left side is steeper and is melting out.

At the summit ridge, ditch your skis – it’s melted out all the way to the summit, making for a not-well-worn scramble through scree, trees, and bushes to the summit. Stay high rather than dropping down onto the face. The scramble to the summit isn’t exactly fun, and would be less pleasant in ski boots (we were in snowboard boots), but it’s slightly annoying rather than hard or dangerous, and the summit itself is quite rewarding. Also, the descent to Annette Lake looks pretty melted out - I'm not sure it still goes, but if you went south of the summit there might have still been an alley down.

On the descent, most people stayed skier’s left, which is the most reliable method. Others went straight over a bulge, which looked fun, if somewhat melted out and I think might not last much longer. We went right, and had to cut back left to the central route when we got to a lightly covered river/waterfall that sounded too much like death to me. The central route seemed like it’d be fun on skis, and less so on a board due to some flats at the bottom. We were unfortunately on foot due to our splitboard interfaces deciding to sleep in and stay home, but it gave us a chance to whip out the ice axes and practice self-arrests, something that had been on our to-do-list for the summer.

Overall, a fun day, and it was inspiring to see the young women pictured above ripping it up on the descent from the ridge - talk about a cool family adventure!

It was a fun day up there indeed. The DOF did a nice job of selling me on a new pair of light summer skis by swapping skis with me for one run - thanks sir!

Nice use of Photosynth, Jason.

FWIW, there was a pretty much continuous band of snow heading up from the cars if you went the right way as of 10AM, but it was a bit of a maze for sure and if you didn't know the right route much easier to get boxed out by Xmas trees and huckleberries and dirt and logs. One path that worked headed up before getting to Windy Pass proper, going up through the woods a bit before emerging in the clearcut. If you make Silver in June a habit it's worth experimenting a bit...

But by late afternoon, the number of snow-free gaps was increasing. Oh, and as of Saturday there was still at least one pretty good 1100vf line down toward Annette, starting from a bit north of where most folks hit the ridge crest, but you wouldn't have known it from a casual glance from the crest. But it was very good fun - worth a couple of laps for Jack and me (this is how I'd rather spend my time up there this time of year versus going for the summit - I'd rather catch that in summer when the trail up the south side is fully melted out...). But on our second bootpack back up, it seemed clear that a few of the "necks" on the route would melt to talus pretty soon - you could really see the progression over a little more than an hour's time We appreciated all the other folks skiing that line, as they really helped smooth out the suncups! As a result, our second run down was even better than the first.

Great to see the kids getting after it! 

feels right showing the next generation the joy of the mountains.
b

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june-8-2013-silver-slopes
silaswild
2013-06-08 13:56:13