December 21, 2002, Alpental backcountry
12/21/02
WA Snoqualmie Pass
2549
2
Summary: it sucked.
We were looking for a place that was a close drive, so we chose Snoqualmie pass and thought we'd head up to great scott bowl, or over the Snow Lake divide, but somehow we ended up skinning up the closed ski area, and traversing over into the "backcountry". Only about a foot of snow at the base, and 2-3 feet higher up, which isn't much to cover the huge boulders.
The real problem was the wind from the past few days though. It has totally hammered the snow here. All aspects we traveled on had hard breakable crust, with occasional patches of powder or ice. We started descending, hoping things would get better as the tree density increased, but the wind got in there too. Only the bottom 500ft before the valley bottom had not been wind-affected, but it was starting to get wet. Over 1800 vertical feet, there was probably about 100ft of nice powder, spread out in 4 chunks or so.
Didn't notice any avalanche signs, except for a small 12 inch hard slab that broke loose from the rain crust in one spot.
We were looking for a place that was a close drive, so we chose Snoqualmie pass and thought we'd head up to great scott bowl, or over the Snow Lake divide, but somehow we ended up skinning up the closed ski area, and traversing over into the "backcountry". Only about a foot of snow at the base, and 2-3 feet higher up, which isn't much to cover the huge boulders.
The real problem was the wind from the past few days though. It has totally hammered the snow here. All aspects we traveled on had hard breakable crust, with occasional patches of powder or ice. We started descending, hoping things would get better as the tree density increased, but the wind got in there too. Only the bottom 500ft before the valley bottom had not been wind-affected, but it was starting to get wet. Over 1800 vertical feet, there was probably about 100ft of nice powder, spread out in 4 chunks or so.
Didn't notice any avalanche signs, except for a small 12 inch hard slab that broke loose from the rain crust in one spot.
>:( That didn't sound like a very fun ski.
Maybe we should see if we could get Charles to put Hermione and Hedwig on the home page again to do some more of that magic stuff, and quick. Or, maybe we should all get together with a sacrificial 5 gallon drum of that "Jarvis Jelly", Ron could led us on a BC trip and someone could light the fuse or something. ;)
Maybe we should see if we could get Charles to put Hermione and Hedwig on the home page again to do some more of that magic stuff, and quick. Or, maybe we should all get together with a sacrificial 5 gallon drum of that "Jarvis Jelly", Ron could led us on a BC trip and someone could light the fuse or something. ;)
I was up there today (the 22nd) and can more or less agree. The was a lot of wind pack. But, for me, it was the first time I have had skins on since July, so it felt great to get out and the views were excllent today.
Reply to this TR
Please login first: