February 20, 2006, Snoqualmie Area powder survey
2/20/06
WA Snoqualmie Pass
2132
0
After our crust patrol on Saturday, we decided to ride lifts on Sunday afternoon and then take the dogs (who each have issues preventing them from ski trips) for a walk up toward Source Lake. That left us plenty of surplus energy, so when we both found ourselves up early on Monday we decided to head up for a good workout instead of dealing with planned chores.
We picked a route where we would have plenty of options for how to ski down, with lots of mellow terrain in particular and good options for quick survival skiing. Other than seeing one snowshoe party, we had the place to ourselves. We climbed ~3K to the ridge crest where the clouds were almost touching down and the snow was starting to fall. I kicked off one teeny bit of 5" slab on a wind roll at the very crest - otherwise we saw a mix of unconsolidated powder on a firm base, suncrust, and icy tree bombed/peed joy. We had lunch in a sun shower, and then headed back down our route of ascent in flurries.
After our high-speed crust blasting on Silver Peak, we were happily surprised by the conditions we found today. It was one of those runs where we shied away from the steeps, and would ski down a nice shot for maybe 10-30 turns, then traverse a bit over to the next nice sheltered shot (sheltered but open - open woods and treed meadows were best), and so it went but for a couple of slightly annoying stretches, adding up to maybe a mere 3-400 vf out of our 3K. For the most part we enjoyed sweet mellow turns on "green" terrain in 3-6" of powder on either a firm base or a slightly cruncy base - mostly on SSW aspects with partial shade of trees. Not high adrenaline turning, but pretty darned fun, especially where we had some terrain humps and little trees spaced just right for a fun ride. We were psyched to get more than just the "slightly better than hiking" journey in the mountains we'd expected today, and we enjoyed being out during the transition back to snowy winter after the clear sunny days.
The stale powder, the crust below it, and in many places the snow beneath that crust were all very sugary from the high temperature gradient we've had. Safe for today, though...
We picked a route where we would have plenty of options for how to ski down, with lots of mellow terrain in particular and good options for quick survival skiing. Other than seeing one snowshoe party, we had the place to ourselves. We climbed ~3K to the ridge crest where the clouds were almost touching down and the snow was starting to fall. I kicked off one teeny bit of 5" slab on a wind roll at the very crest - otherwise we saw a mix of unconsolidated powder on a firm base, suncrust, and icy tree bombed/peed joy. We had lunch in a sun shower, and then headed back down our route of ascent in flurries.
After our high-speed crust blasting on Silver Peak, we were happily surprised by the conditions we found today. It was one of those runs where we shied away from the steeps, and would ski down a nice shot for maybe 10-30 turns, then traverse a bit over to the next nice sheltered shot (sheltered but open - open woods and treed meadows were best), and so it went but for a couple of slightly annoying stretches, adding up to maybe a mere 3-400 vf out of our 3K. For the most part we enjoyed sweet mellow turns on "green" terrain in 3-6" of powder on either a firm base or a slightly cruncy base - mostly on SSW aspects with partial shade of trees. Not high adrenaline turning, but pretty darned fun, especially where we had some terrain humps and little trees spaced just right for a fun ride. We were psyched to get more than just the "slightly better than hiking" journey in the mountains we'd expected today, and we enjoyed being out during the transition back to snowy winter after the clear sunny days.
The stale powder, the crust below it, and in many places the snow beneath that crust were all very sugary from the high temperature gradient we've had. Safe for today, though...
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