January 4, 2006, Source Lake area
1/4/06
WA Snoqualmie Pass
2067
0
Jason and I made plans to head up to Snoqualmie. We briefly considered Snoqualmie mtn, but neither of us had done that tour before, and since I needed to be back early afternoon for work, it was a bit of a stretch. So we decided to make a run for Pineapple basin instead.
On the ride up, we discussed the overnight snow, which was more than expected. However, temps had remained cold, and low winds, so no warning bells went off. Once we arrived, we had some second thoughts, but after some consideration, decided to head up to source lake and take a look.
We toured up through the trees heading up to source lake. It was possible to follow the previous skin track covered by the new snow, but at some points, it was faint.
We popped out just above source lake, and started heading uphill just to the left of a drainage. Looking at the map now, we probably went a little too far in, and took the northern drainage feeding into source lake, and not the drainage leading toward piss pass, which is where we intended to go.
We followed the N drainage, trying to stay in the trees skies right of a slope covered in avy debris. We probably stopped somewhere just under Bryant peak. We weren't totally sure exactly where we were, since visibility was only about 100 feet. At one point, the clouds lifted, and we got a glimpse of what I thought was chair peak. The view didn't stick around long enough to be sure of that.
We skied/boarded down through the trees skiers right of our up track. The slog back to the car was pretty, but uneventful. I consider it a small victory that I was able to navigate the path on a splitboard in ski mode w/o skins, considering the last time I tried that trick I spent more time on my a*** then on my feet :)
After dropping off some gear, we took the lift up to the top of Alpental and made a run down International to the near backcountry, or whatever the runs below the lower gate were called. Elevator gate was not open, despite what we thought we heard from a couple of ski patrolers on the backcountry exit track. Conditions were pretty good, but pretty tracked out by early afternoon.
Snow condition notes:
On the tour in, the new seemed very unconsolidated. We dug a couple of snow pits, and found 6-8 inches of unconsolidated snow on top of several layers of more consolidated snow, which seemed to be fairly well bonded to each other. A shovel shear test showed a fairly clean shear ( I guess I'd call it a Q2 if pressed, but haven't done enought of these to be sure) at the crust layer under the most recent snow (~7 inches). The resulting block crumbled when I tried to invert it to look at the bottom shear plane. I'm not sure why we didn't take more time to do a tap or compression test, but we felt pretty good about the conditions we saw at that point. There were a few small sloughs coming off of the cliffs above our high point, which encouraged us not to dwadle and get ourselves down slope.
On the ride up, we discussed the overnight snow, which was more than expected. However, temps had remained cold, and low winds, so no warning bells went off. Once we arrived, we had some second thoughts, but after some consideration, decided to head up to source lake and take a look.
We toured up through the trees heading up to source lake. It was possible to follow the previous skin track covered by the new snow, but at some points, it was faint.
We popped out just above source lake, and started heading uphill just to the left of a drainage. Looking at the map now, we probably went a little too far in, and took the northern drainage feeding into source lake, and not the drainage leading toward piss pass, which is where we intended to go.
We followed the N drainage, trying to stay in the trees skies right of a slope covered in avy debris. We probably stopped somewhere just under Bryant peak. We weren't totally sure exactly where we were, since visibility was only about 100 feet. At one point, the clouds lifted, and we got a glimpse of what I thought was chair peak. The view didn't stick around long enough to be sure of that.
We skied/boarded down through the trees skiers right of our up track. The slog back to the car was pretty, but uneventful. I consider it a small victory that I was able to navigate the path on a splitboard in ski mode w/o skins, considering the last time I tried that trick I spent more time on my a*** then on my feet :)
After dropping off some gear, we took the lift up to the top of Alpental and made a run down International to the near backcountry, or whatever the runs below the lower gate were called. Elevator gate was not open, despite what we thought we heard from a couple of ski patrolers on the backcountry exit track. Conditions were pretty good, but pretty tracked out by early afternoon.
Snow condition notes:
On the tour in, the new seemed very unconsolidated. We dug a couple of snow pits, and found 6-8 inches of unconsolidated snow on top of several layers of more consolidated snow, which seemed to be fairly well bonded to each other. A shovel shear test showed a fairly clean shear ( I guess I'd call it a Q2 if pressed, but haven't done enought of these to be sure) at the crust layer under the most recent snow (~7 inches). The resulting block crumbled when I tried to invert it to look at the bottom shear plane. I'm not sure why we didn't take more time to do a tap or compression test, but we felt pretty good about the conditions we saw at that point. There were a few small sloughs coming off of the cliffs above our high point, which encouraged us not to dwadle and get ourselves down slope.
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