December 31, 2017, Jim Hill

Set the track from Lanham this morning. Dust on breakable crust in the trees, sorry about the poor route choices to anyone that decided to follow us. Finally got to decent snow at the saddle, wind affected and definite areas of crust from another freezing fog event I guess. Evidence of storm slabs broke and ran naturally in a few places, then got filled in sometime yesterday with the winds. Said slide paths held wind transported snow and were the softest skiing above treeline. We topped out at the saddle in the summit ridgeline to finally get some sun, basked above the sea of clouds, spotted peaks from Baker out to the Olympics, and then dropped in. Contemplated skipping the main north bowls because the cloud layer was obscuring an easy route back to the saddle at the ridge, but gave it a go when we saw a clearing in the fog. NW facing aspects always skied the best, but N did well - wind scoured pow turns. For the party that dropped in after us into Henry - hope that went well.

We elected to avoid Henry creek and potential slide alder hell and went back to Lanham - dust on crust below the ridge was fast but not unenjoyable. Lower elevations turned back on as the crust abated. One or two more good storms and the logs will be transformed into glorious pillows and not deathlips.