Home > Trip Reports > Feb 6, 2016, Annette Lake Vicinity

Feb 6, 2016, Annette Lake Vicinity

2/6/16
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Posted by Kenji on 2/7/16 3:16am
As I pulled in to park at less than 1900', my companions started suggesting driving further over the Pass.  All we saw here was dark green trees w/o any snow, dirty patches of snow on the ground and the grey sky dropping some moisture.  I did emphasize the West approach to Silver Peak night before, but they were very uncertain there would be any fun skiing from here.

This is my favorite route to Silver Peak following Humpback creek all the way, then the ridge to the summit via the Abiel-Silver saddle. Of course the main goal is to ski the open West slopes when the condition is favorable. On this day we opted to ski-plore the head of the creek below the Abiel-Humpback ridge, since the snow was a little heavy, the sky was grey, possible East-wind loading on the West slope.

Skiing was ~great on the heavy new snow, and the exit was straight forward skiing all the way to the car!  I needed a bit of adjustment after skiing too much on Hokkaido powder.





Fairly new slides from the cliffs on Humpback:


A few more pics here.
Great tour, Kenji! And we're sorry that you're having to re-adjust to the inferior nature of the local goods...

A group I toured with in early January skied that slot that the last 2 SmugMug photos in your gallery show. We made it to within 300 feet of the summit ridge that you can see way at the top. I recommend THAT as your next Annette Lake venture. The creek crossing is just behind your group where all those snow 'hummocks' are in your last TAY photo. Nice to see many folks getting back into that basin this winter. Praise Ullr for the low, long-lasting snow this season!!!

Love that route, and I never went over to the SW in the back of the valley.  Thanks for the report over there.

Here is the slope Greg mentions, I've skied the lower half in powder a few years ago:


We were the first one to park at 8:30am, then there were about 10 cars when we came back though we didn't see anybody all day!

Yes, the beginning of the route had a little dirty snow - a true low elevation Northwest approach?  Fun skiing up higher. 

I camped at the lake a few times this summer for something easy to get out of the city and the whole time I was thinking, "Damn this would be fun with some snow on it". Nice write up.

Skied the lower slopes of Silver on Tuesday - 4" of corny potatoes.  Lots of crust in the shade but great skiing out in the sun.  Luged out the snowshoe approach trail which was sporty at times, but easier running for the dogs than the crust/mush off trail in the woods.

Thanks for the post, I really like the pic of the Chicakadee on the ski tip.  It looks like we will all have to adjust our skiing with the warm up here in the PNW, Boo Hoo!

That same chubby little guy was there on Tuesday.

I was not paying attention, of course not a Chickadee, but a got something for me Gray Jay.

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feb-6-2016-annette-lake-vicinity
Kenji
2016-02-07 11:16:55