June 17, 2018, Chinook Pass

A beautiful day at Chinook Pass. The north-facing slopes north and east of Naches Peak still have great snow coverage. Skinned from the pass. Rather than dropping into the valley and skinning all the way up to the saddle SE of Naches Peak, we stayed high gaining elevation right from the road, and traversing higher up the slope below Naches. The only other time I've been to Chinook Pass, we dropped into the valley and had to regain all the elevation. This was less work! The snow coverage was great (and much less elevation lost on the way to the eventual goal). The only time we took skis off was a short steep section where side-hilling on skins and soft snow was too tricky. On the way back to the car, we were able to ski out most of the way on this higher line, once we gained enough elevation to start.

The new snow + rain has mostly consolidated, though the surface snow started pretty soft in the morning. We left the car at 8am and were back by 11:30am. The turns were great. Corn o'clock on the softer north facing slopes was around 11am. As the new snow consolidates more I imagine later in the day will be good. There was a lot of yellow pollen as previously reported, but it did not seem to slow us down much.

Clouds were beautiful. Great day in the mountains.