January 20, 2017, Pan Face

Nothing like Amar's epic from last week (scope him out in the current issue of Backcountry Magazine), but I ventured out to ski Pan Face and avoid thinking about what's going on in the other Washington today. Wind affected for sure with cornices forming on Glacier Vista.  Luckily that meant Pan Face itself was mostly sheltered from the wind scour and actually held several inches of powder over the sheet of ice that followed the 6" of rain this week.  Still the skin up was tricky and I forgot my ski crampons at home -- if the snow slid, it was all edges.  Wound over to SW ridge to finish up the climb.  Up on Pan Point it was mostly ice and a very skittery start but the ski down was actually quite good. Began to snow heavily on the way out.  A couple of snowshoers planning an overnighter to Camp Muir appeared to be turning around by the time I was down Pan Face (it was 3 pm and they were just to Pan Point so making Muir didn't look likely).