April 21, 2015, Naches Peak

It has been a year since my last tour in the Chinook Pass area.  I drove to Chinook Pass and looked at the snow pack at Yakima Peak which is sad.  The east side of Naches Peak looks good.  €œZap's Peak€ ,which is really peak #6567, has good coverage.  Many years ago a group of friends started calling it €œZap's Peak €œ for some crazy reason which I forget.

I parked near Tipsoo Lake.  I started climbing at 10am as the sun was hitting the rim on climber's right. The lake is about 25% thawed, and I would not recommend skiing over the rest of the lake.  The coverage is OK, but the creeks are showing.  I skied 2 northwest areas in the bowl which was still firm until 11:30am when it got slushy.  Then I skied in the treed area, but the temperatures were climbing and it was time to end the day.  The clouds were arriving and the view of Rainier was diminishing.