February 14, 2014, Snoqualmie Pass

Quick morning trip to Hyak with Susan and Sergei, his first dawn ski trip.

Snowing pretty hard when we hit the Hyak lot at 6:30, ski penetration of ~1" atop a soft thick soggy pencil-hard crust. Snowed the whole time we were there, turning to rain when we left the parking lot at ~9. One big gust of west wind hit the top at ~8:40, blowing chunks of snow out of many of the trees.

At the top, 1" had become 3-4", the crust had become a 1F double crust, and the snow below the crust had become 8-10" of very soft and soggy pow. At higher elevations, I'd be concerned about the bond between the double-crust layers, but at Hyak, we'd run out of up. Out of caution, we bypassed the steepest pitch below the lift.

Skied two of the looker's-left shots through the trees, skied better than expected. The lift line goes, and is more fun than usual, as some of the steeper rolls haven't yet filled in.  With effort, loose sluffs could be made to run on the steepest (for Hyak) slopes, and friendly pinwheels were prolific down low. Alpy patrol sounded like they were having a lot of fun on their control routes.

Thanks for a great time away from the desk! Back to work.