Home > Trip Reports > December 3, 2005, Silver Fir / Acres

December 3, 2005, Silver Fir / Acres

12/3/05
WA Snoqualmie Pass
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Posted by wolfs on 12/2/05 10:05pm
Morning tour for exercise. And what exercise. Instead of the White Room, it was like the Weight Room, what with skin track sinking 2 feet or more and kicking all that crap off the shovels. Took something like 2.25 hours for basically one run plus about a 400ft lap.
On the way up from my test lap I met md2020 (mike) who gave me back some trail break karma for the final push to the Silver Fir liftiehut. His slightly fatter skis might have helped a little.
Turns were barely possible on the Silver Fir liftline. Can there be too much of a good thing? I think perhaps. I had to pedal a lot under the snow to maintain balance, more float that midfats would have been a good thing.
The top 8-10" is quite slabby, pancaking and cracking off my skin track extensively as I climbed, but the angles here seemed safely below alarming. The snow below is better, lighter and man is there a lot of it, must have fell fast, failed to fill in around trees etc. in some cases making little traps.
Snowed  most of day with occasional tantalizing golden light to the east. In fact it was snowing much of the drive up starting from my house. It's snowing here at home now  :D The Acres to Hyak access road was a little more icy than I calculated; as I exited from the SF lot I pretty much slid sideways Miami Vice stylee across it, right in front of WSP, albeit I was going about 5 mph. Sorry bout that officer.
just reading cw's nordic pass trip report from yesterday and I can tell you there was no sign of any skin track of any kind. Anyway after skiing down Silver Fir chair line with wolfs I headed back up for another lap. I then decided to check out the nordic track over to Grand Junction. Track was groomed :). Decided to continue on towards Nordic Pass and check out the trees below the radio tour. At the junction to the overlook the grooming ended. I ended up breaking trail nearly to the radio tower. The snow in the trees was a bit less slabby but still deep and hell to break through. Downhill in the trees was a bit better than under Silver Fir lift. Good coverage but lots of deep unconsolidated. Hard to get enough angle. Anyway, there's now a skin track nearly to the radio tower and another to Nordic Pass - another skier caught me and continued on to the pass. Hard day!

Thanks for the good reports

You guys almost had company this am as my partner and I drove past silver fir thinking, maybe, maybe.  But I feared breaking trail and wanted to take advantage of the track I broke on Friday at Hyak.  Sounds like bird-in-hand this year means use the existing track or suffer.

Good work and know your karma will come your way for your good deeds.  Come to think of it, we did three laps at Hyak today and honest to goodness here's how it went: we climb to the top in snow, take a run in the spotty sunshine, get to the bottom and it snows an inch while we climb to the top and then the sun comes out again for another run, repeat.  I can't make this up!  I even asked Ron how much his Soul cost him as it must have been more than a half day of skiing (but maybe I  shouldn't talk).  

Yeah, many of us who put in the first uptrack anywhere this weekend experienced more "earn" than "turn".  Even at Hyak as late as Sunday afternoon.   But it was all good everywhere, so who's complaining.

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wolfs
2005-12-03 06:05:06