Dec 31-Jan 2, Sat-Mon, 2005-06, Snoqualmie Pass

More for the base. <br><br>12/31/05 - Morning skied West & Central. Overcast/foggy with occasional snow/sleet showers. Temps ran from 33 forst ting to about 37 when the sleeting started in ernest around 11:45, so that's when I bugged out due to the bad visibility. Snow surface was around 4" of thick NW new over an ice crust. Solid bonding between the layers. My route was the near grand tour - Little Thunderbird for pre-open (Thanks to Mike the patroller for letting me ride up with him), PC, Wildside, Crossover to Parachute (not iced/scrapped yet), Triple 60, CE, and then a looooong traverse from the bottom of Golden Nugget over to Silver Fir chair where they were'nt open for lift yet (shooting for noon) so I took the shuttle bus back to CE, and then various chairs back to West. Not a bad morning, but not a great one either. TomK - traversin' fool.<br><br>1/1/06 - Hit up Silver Fir chair around noon (sleep-in from New Years) and basicly skied the Outback till 3:30. Better than yesterday vis-wise and the snow was still consistantly carveable. Crossover to Hyak still not open (Hyak was open, but shuttle and a hike up wasn't atttractive), the patroller we met shared that they bvstill had some hazards to mark on the lower crassover and he was looking for help. IT was a goood day of practicing on steeper pitches for our "newbie" 2nd seasoner She's now tackling the upper Outback face easily. TomK, Kerry, Chad, & Karrie.<br><br>1/2/06 - Arrived at Silver Fir to 32F and overcast, just dry fog and just a couple of snow sprinkles made for a nice change from the wet skyglop the previous days. Snow off-piste is a 1 inch soft raincrust over wet 2-3 inch consolidated, then 4-5 inches of wet, then down to about 19" via a pole-push test with solid snow below that. A great base to add to, and good enough for some tree exploring between upper Outback and the crossover. No waits loading the Silver Fir chair, and they opened up the crossover to Hyak where we spent the rest of our day sking onto the Keechelus chair and ripping high-G GS turns down the various low-angle runs (avoiding the face where there were a large number of sticks sticking up.) Boy, does Hyak need another snowdump to open up the bottom lift, and make the face a non-slalom run. TomK & Kerry<br>