January 21, 2005, Snoqualmie Pass region

I'll confirm your analysis.  Good turns to be had, but horrid mashed-potato concrete below 3500-4000 feet. (Could have been mitigated by staying in the woods.)  Nice exhausting trail-breaking was manageable with 5 willing breakers.  Saw one other large party, who appreciated the extra-wide snowshoe/splitboard/ski skin track (turns out of if the snowshoers aren't last in line, you still end up with a pretty sweet skin track).

Ditto. Even the mush (low snoqualitie) lower down was pretty fun in more open areas where you could choose your line, though I'm imagining we all did our yo-yos above ~3800. I love tree skiing in these conditions - it was hero powder on the steeps, though I did watch one of those "8 inch harmless soft slabs" my buddy kicked off fill in and just barely overflow a tree well before halting (probably a slab about 10x20 - other than that all I saw break all day were tiny unsupported rollovers on stumps or boulders). Made you think just a little about what to ski above.

It was nice to have a decent contingent of folks willing to take short turns up front while breaking. Fortunately it stayed warm down low even toward dark as we skied out, so we didn't have any re-freeze to contend with.

Lotsa folks up enjoying various corners of the Pass in all sorts of self- and other-powered fashions, but it's nice to know you can still find quiet places once you leave the car.

Here's a short video that I shot yesterday. I need to learn more about this new camera to get better exposures, but in the meantime this gives some feel for the day. I forgot to pull the camera out during some of the best skiing of the day, as I was having too much fun!!

Silas moved too fast to get on tape.