Nov 11 Chinook Pass

I left Seattle with buddy Jon under sunny skies and except for the Enumclaw area it stayed sunny and clear all the way to Chinook Pass, where we encountered what I can only call a waterfall of fog spilling through the pass.  As we drove up the switchbacks we could see that the south side of Naches Peak was sunny, while the north side completely socked in.

We opted to follow the hiking trail around the west side of the peak, where we quickly left the fog and skied on mere inches of snow.  In many places the trail was the only viable options as there just wasn't enough snow in the open fields.

We made it to the easy summit and were above the fog where we could see a giant lake of fog sitting in the high plateau of Eastern Washington draining through the pass, just like a lake drains out of its low spot.

I made a 4 minute video of admittedly poor quality that tries to capture some of that fog experience.  The fog was the highlight of the day as the skiing on 4" - 6" of snow over rocks and shrubbery was certainly not.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n81vyA3Q3E

I count it as a good day,and day number 2 of this new season.  We skied at Steven's Pass on Saturday 11.09 and found it had more and better snow compared to this outing.