May 5-7, 2006, Washington Pass

    Hoping to beat the approaching fronts and find weekend corn, Aaron Weiss, Jiri Richter and I left Seattle early Friday evening for Washington Pass, arriving close to midnight.  With high clouds & a weak moon shining through high overcast, we joined 4 other cars at the Blue Lk trailhead, and fell asleep with optimism.  Up at 6 am, we found the clouds thickening and the temps yet below freezing.  Conversation with fellow skiers gearing up was encouraging, as the past three days had been epic corn skiing, and the Birthday Tour was in fine shape.  As we climbed, the promised front continued it's inevitable push, and the ceiling gradually dropped, obscuring adjacent peaks and spitting a little snow.  The snow was uniformly refrozen corn, with none of the soft pockets mentioned on the May 3rd posing, nor any breakable crust.  The final push to the col was a straight up boot pack, with an easy passage through the cornice of doom.  The sun was still struggling, and occasional broke through, but to no avail - the descent to the south down Madison Ave was on a smooth melt-freeze surface - fast and edgy with off and on flat light.  After a short break at 6000', we ascended to the east and again north, heading back up to the ridge for the return to the hairpin.  Choosing the left hand , west entrance at aobut 7200' el., we dropped down through a narrow, steep and frozen  ramp with the occasional frozen corn track and cornice chunk thrown in to keep you focused.  It opened up pretty fast, but the surface remained frozen until about 6400' when suddenly we hit CORN.  Apparently the weak sun and absence of wind provided enough thermal input to give us the goods.  It was so good that we had to stop at about the 5400' level and ascend one of the steep avalanche chutes which hadn't drained during the previous warm days.  We then skied down and out to the hairpin on smooth, creamy corn.  We and the four other parties who did the route were generally pleased with the fine tour.  We then headed to Winthrop and the Duck Brand Inn for supper, followed up with a nite at the Early Winters campground - comfortably dry, warm and with a good campfire.
    Sunday morning dawned overcast and feeling a little moist; after a leisurely start we headed up, debating on what we'd do today.  As we approached the pass, the front was definately in, spitting snow at the hairpins and drizziling by the Blue Lk trailhead - so our decision was made, drop back down to the hairpin and search out some cream.  Heading up the valley, we were looking for one of the chutes and slopes on the Kangaroo side that wasn't crudded up with wet slide debris - most were.  But we prevailed and found a fine series of chutes and slopes which kept us in clean snow.  Over night the wind and snow had deposited a smooth topping of wind deposition - not slabby nor breakable, but just enough to fill in the odd runnel, and basically make yesterdays frozen surface imminently skiable.  The snow and wind increased as we climbed.  By the time we topped out on the ridgetop in a narrow windtunnel at 7500', it was bloody uncomfortable.  So a quick change, and we were ready to rip - and it was good!  Smooth, open treed, changing pitch fast skiing brought us to the bottom almost too fast.  That run was the highlight of the weekend.  From there, an easy cruise back to the hairpin and high fives.  A fine weekend, even if without the legendary Washington Pass corn.  Ski crampons came in handy, and final bootup to Kangaroo Ridge was enhanced with some lightweight boot crampons.  The snow looks good for some weeks more, although the Cutthroat side of the road is breaking down into glide cracks and ledges, so it will go faster.  This next week is forecast to return to spring again, and if next weekend wasn't Mothers' Day, I'd sure want to return for more.  Jiri posted some fine pictures at his site: http://www.jirir.com/wapass.  We saw a phenomena up on Kangaroo we'd never seen before - rime buildup on the icicles hanging off the rocks, there's several pictures of them.