Dec 17 Van Trump

We both had the weekend free from responsibility so; after MW dropped his family off at the airport he swung by Seattle to pick me up. Despite a grim report of breakable crust at Paradise on the 15th we thought we would take advantage of the good visibility and head to Van Trump Glacier to explore the terrain we previously had only viewed in typical NW weather.
At about Kent MW remembered his boots were at home, so back to Issaquah, and if I hadn’t done the same thing to him last season on a failed trip to Glacier peak I would have really given him a hard time about it.
This put us at the TH 9ish. It was good to see snow to the parking lot after last year but it looked pretty tough. We came out of the woods and into the VT park around 11. There were great views to be had Saturday, Hood, Adams, a gassy ST Helens, and the Kautz glacier revealed different hues of blue. We fought through strong sandblasting winds up to about 8300ft and called it below some redrock cliffs.
A blow out on a snowshoe binding on the way caused us some debate about whether we wanted to go to keep on the road as planned, now with a known equipment issue, or head back home to grab our skis tomorrow and try to find some NW facing slopes with gentler snow.
The skiing up top was really fun. It was hard wind blown snow for sure, but the boards held an edge just fine, and occasionally we would find pockets of drifted powder to make a silent turn in. I can close my eyes and recall one particular gully that was a virtual powder bank from which we withdrew, at least two, maybe three consecutive powder turns.
As we entered the forest the snow was unkind, we were jump turning in the hard breakable crust and generally just trying to keep it together.  I think we reached car around 4.
Is there anything harder on the eyes than Spanaway after a day in beautiful MRNP? Nails, Loans, Bail Bonds, 7-11, Repeat, Nails, Loans, Bail Bonds, 7-11, Repeat…