April 11, 2006, Source Lake and Snow Lake
4/11/06
WA Snoqualmie Pass
2664
3
Wow. It's April already and this is only my second BC trip in Cascades this season. At least it was a good winter in other respects.
After a weekend of skiing lifts with mjt and our youngest brother, Andrew, we decided late last night that we wanted to get a little touring in. Mjt had to work (huh?), so Andrew and I headed up to Alpental to see what kind of snow was left. We found two predominate kinds of snow: firm and avalanche debris.
We didn't get a proper "dawn patrol" start, but hey, this spring skiing so too early isn't good, right? We stopped for coffee and a pastry at the Eastgate Tully's and yelled "Grande Cocoa!" but got no replies, only strange looks. We pulled into the Alpental parking lot around 7:30am. I presented two options: skin up the ski area just to get some turns in, or head up toward Source Lake and do a little touring. Andrew opted for the latter and we started skinning up the return track from the upper parking lot.
Pretty early on we left the track and skinned a long line up the west side of the valley to just below the Pineapple Pass Bowl. From there we could see that most of the slopes on the west and north side of Source Lake had slid, leaving huge amounts of debris. But on the northeast, there was some clean looking snow in between some scraggly looking trees. We cut across the debris, having to take the skis off at times and climb over the rubble. From there we skinned up to the divide overlooking Snow Lake. We stopped here for some pictures and a snack, then headed down our planned route.
As expected, the snow varied from very firm to nice corn but it was mostly firm. At least there was very little avy risk at the time. We negotiated the steep treed slope back down to Source Lake, then zipped the track back to the car.
Not bad for a Tuesday morning!
Finally got some picture uploaded. They're a little underexposed and I haven't had time to post-process, but here they are.
After a weekend of skiing lifts with mjt and our youngest brother, Andrew, we decided late last night that we wanted to get a little touring in. Mjt had to work (huh?), so Andrew and I headed up to Alpental to see what kind of snow was left. We found two predominate kinds of snow: firm and avalanche debris.
We didn't get a proper "dawn patrol" start, but hey, this spring skiing so too early isn't good, right? We stopped for coffee and a pastry at the Eastgate Tully's and yelled "Grande Cocoa!" but got no replies, only strange looks. We pulled into the Alpental parking lot around 7:30am. I presented two options: skin up the ski area just to get some turns in, or head up toward Source Lake and do a little touring. Andrew opted for the latter and we started skinning up the return track from the upper parking lot.
Pretty early on we left the track and skinned a long line up the west side of the valley to just below the Pineapple Pass Bowl. From there we could see that most of the slopes on the west and north side of Source Lake had slid, leaving huge amounts of debris. But on the northeast, there was some clean looking snow in between some scraggly looking trees. We cut across the debris, having to take the skis off at times and climb over the rubble. From there we skinned up to the divide overlooking Snow Lake. We stopped here for some pictures and a snack, then headed down our planned route.
As expected, the snow varied from very firm to nice corn but it was mostly firm. At least there was very little avy risk at the time. We negotiated the steep treed slope back down to Source Lake, then zipped the track back to the car.
Not bad for a Tuesday morning!
Finally got some picture uploaded. They're a little underexposed and I haven't had time to post-process, but here they are.
Curses! What a beautiful day to be stuck in the office! I think further dawn patrolling will be required once I'm not on-call.
author=Daniel link=topic=4487.msg19116#msg19116 date=1144787188]Guess I was still asleep at that hour, but you would've had to yell quite loud for me to hear that a few miles away at my apartment ;D
We stopped for coffee and a pastry at the Eastgate Tully's and yelled "Grande Cocoa!" but got no replies, only strange looks.
Glad you were able to get out for a dawn patrol, despite the firm/avy debris snow conditions; still sounds much more fun than my morning at work ;)
Yeah, I was worried that 11pm was a little late to start rounding up the usual suspects for a morning trip. But we couldn't pass up the customary Tully's stop. I sure hope I can get a few more days in up there, but it would appear that it's a little late in the season for dawn patrol. However, afternoon patrol might be just right for certain north facing objectives... ;)
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