April 16, 2017, South of Snoqualmie Pass the usual

My son and I took a day trip on his new (used) AT setup he bought "from some dad in Wedgewood".  Anyway the   gear worked fine on a shakedown (w new boots!).  It was a lot more overcast and cooler than I expected; the Weather Service did call for the winds, which were definitely noticeable in places. 

We skinned up Summit Central prior to opening and dropped into the Nordic trail system, then through Nordic Pass.  A giant group of snowshoers seem to have established a trough up past the blue diamond markers, looking like they eventually headed to Mt. Catherine. The short little drop from Nordic to Windy was actually tolerable and as noted elsewhere coverage is really great. Ollalie was the usual; we went up into the N side of Silver where the lower glades were nice but the upper bowl was taut and crusty. There was a considerable amount of avy debris from the N ridge of Silver that had slid down E facing slopes into the bowl, and pretty big cornices along the ridgeline. NB lots of snomo tracks everywhere.  We bailed just slightly below the crux to get to the wooded knoll that sits just N of Silver and explored the snow varieties on the descent. Upper part was tough, lower part and Ollalie were pretty OK. We returned via Rockdale Canyon road/trail which is still holding snow great.  All in all a fine day out.