January 28, 2017, Mt. Catherine

Old news with the weather change but today's sunny weather should offer up similar if not better views. Went up on Saturday during the weekend frenzy. Got to Hyak sno-park at 9:30 am with lots of room left in the lot. Skinned up the FS road to Windy Pass. Lots of nordic skiers out, actually enjoyed the "crowd" as it were in that respect to see the self-powered ski community out in force. At Windy Pass, found an old skin track heading up the Mt. Catherine shoulder that petered out quickly so I forged my own.  If you find it, you may not enjoy it -- you've been warned.

Warming trend by 1ish meant bombs away in the trees, but the north-facing aspects of Catherine were nice and sheltered.  Avoided the cliff bands for a pretty darn good run down.  Summit to 4k' was 4-6" dense powder on top of the rain crust.  You felt the crust on every turn, but it was no longer survival skiing.  4k' below was just good old pow, a solid 10 days after the storm, with less than a half dozen other tracks crisscrossing through the trees.  Didn't see a soul the entire time once I turned off the groomed road and with the low clouds couldn't even see the resort until I bottomed out across the creek from Hidden Valley at Hyak. Skinned up and over Hyak, gave ski patrol a wave, ripped it down the face, and reached home before sunset.

Just to suggest that, for all the fretting about backcountry crowding, on a fairweather Saturday I was on a peak as close as one can get to the closest ski resort to the "big city" and had the whole place to myself. Be glad we don't live in the Wasatch. Life is good here.