January 25, 2015, Snoqualmie - Source Lake area

I really could not get myself to join the pilgrimage to Paradise (or Baker). Given this year€™s snowpack and the tear-drawing climate outlook, both destinations are going to be on my regular agenda soon enough. It has been a while since I was last at Snoqualmie and I was not sure what to expect. My regular partner in crime bailed on me last minute to head for Paradise predicting nasty bushwhacking for hours through uber-human high alder with nasty thorns while drowning in knee deep mud puddles. That did not help my visions of a fun day. Skinning up the Source Lake drainage was fine (see first picture). I took skis off twice to cross two creeks but other than that it was fast skinning on icy snow. Near Source Lake staying high gets you around all the creek drainages without much effort.

I started skinning at sunrise and my first objective ended up being the east facing slope to skier€™s left of Bryant couloir (third picture). Since conditions were really stable I tinkered around in the couloir and climbed to the water fall rock band. I thought for a moment about climbing up, but since I did not have a rope and reversing might be tricky I opted for the descent. This made for good timing on that east facing slope which had about 3-4in of soft corn on a solid base.

I skied this to Source Lake and then headed towards Snow Lake. I scoped out Snow Lake to see if one could even remotely think about crossing it. After that I was going to head towards the Chair Peak Circe, but got distracted by a nice run down the south face of the East ridge of Chair Peak (slope to the very right in second picture). It was steep enough that I had to boot the top section. I climbed a short steep pitch to the top of the ridge which gave me a good view on the eastern slopes off of Chair Peak and Snow Lake.

I was hoping I could ski the entry to the short couloir, but the top was very steep and out of the sun. Chances that I would slip off were non-trivial, so I booted down into the sunny section. From there it was a few fun jump turns and then hero corn down to the trail.

The trail out from Source Lake never softened up. Two short carries and I was at the car and headed back home feeling good that this didn€™t end up being the predicted disaster. Need more snow!