Home > Trip Reports > June 3, 2006, Silver Peak

June 3, 2006, Silver Peak

6/3/06
WA Snoqualmie Pass
2349
7
Posted by mfaoro on 6/3/06 8:30am
Thanks to Jim's report from the 29th, Straka and I were excited for some easy access ski touring. Boy - we were not disappointed.

Drove to within a 150 or so yards of Windy Pass. Go out, put on the skins and away we went following the road up to the PCT and then followed the clearcut up until cutting into the trees near what looks like a road. There is a clear skin track through the trees and up into the basin.

When we got up to the ridge beautiful views abounded - Stuart, Rainier, Chinkamin... We were soon joined by several other TAYers -- Silas, Jim, CW, Mary, and one more person whose name I cant remembers (sorry  :)).

The ski down was really nice corn - we did three laps of the upper basins wooping it up everytime. Skied all the way to the cars.

Michael
Nice.
That's a good one.

Good to see you Michael, and what a great tour with very short drive from Seattle and no booting approach.  Did we park about 3800'?  Snow consistency was excellent,  1/2 inch of butter atop firmness. 

After one run in the basin, we decided to explore the line toward Annette Lake for dkoelle.  It was superb!  Not narrow at all, constant pitch (25 degrees?), fairly smooth, and 1000' of mostly wide open slopes.   Then it entered forest with alder ground cover, we chose not to descend further.  Booted back up to the ridge and enjoyed another lap before returning to the car via some nice steeps in the trees below the basin.

In addition to the dozen or so skier/boarders, we also saw the Bushwacker Climbing Club (no joke, it is a real club) doing some mountaineering training in the basin, but we saw no devil's club, vine maple, or slide alder for them to enjoy on that side of Silver.  As we were leaving at 5pm a carload of young folks arrived and headed up on splitboards.

Not sure how much longer the line toward Annette will last, maybe next weekend will be ok too?

Good to meet you Michael, a short jaunt for me today with time to make it back home to mow the lawn and have dinner with the in laws from out of town, good coverage still and nice snow today, I think a evening ski this week might be in the books................

CW

Thanks for the report.  That Lake Annette run is one Charles introduced me to eons ago.  May try to get up mid-week. 

It was a fun contrast from the solitude of last weekend to have such a festive atmosphere in the upper basin, what with multiple sliding groups, the bushwackers setting up a big camp and then roping up for some practice, and of course the SUN coming out as the afternoon wore on. It was nice to meet a few new TAY folks, and to barely miss you CW (I assume that was you with the bullet of a dog close on your heels).

Thanks to Silas for prodding our crew to go explore what I'll call "dkoelle's ribbon," which allowed us to do a "two county tour," by the way (OK, maybe we hit King County for a moment in Olallie Meadow anyhow...). I've eyed the upper (and narrowest) part at least 3 times but couldn't convince past partners that it was worth finding out what lay below. I would have wanted to go for a third lap on it if not for feeling so fat and beat down by the prior week. It was just starting to get nicely smoothed out!

That was a great day of skiing, next time I think I will short rope myself to Silas so I can keep up! Maybe it was those new Intuition liners that made him go like the energizer bunny or I am just more out of shape than I realized :-[
Thanks for the not so subtle prodding of doing the "ribbon" to down the Anette side. Something about
being a fricken idiot if I passed that up- it was totally worth it!.
Good to meet new folks and add a little extra adventure on the way back down. Saw some great spots for
a nice overnighter.  :D

author=maryg link=topic=4844.msg20619#msg20619 date=1149724166]
I think I will short rope myself to Silas so I can keep up! Maybe it was those new Intuition liners that made him go like the energizer bunny or I am just more out of shape than I realized :-[
Thanks for the not so subtle prodding of doing the "ribbon" to down the Anette side. Something about
being a fricken idiot if I passed that up- it was totally worth it!.

Maybe it was those diamond (or is it Diamir) slippers you wore?  Of course you must keep using them until you are older, more mature, and subtle. ???   Thanks for being the downhill technique model,  in the absence of my regular inspiration Rob.

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mfaoro
2006-06-03 15:30:19