November 25, 2006, Snoqualmie, Summit Central

What a treat - Snoqualmie Pass in November! Matt, Vince and I were originally going to try to get to Silver Peak via Nordic Pass, but the trailbreaking involved in that put us off and we opted for sampling short runs in the unopened Summit Central area. The Silver Fir parking lot had not been plowed, so we started from the lot to the west. Tough trailbreaking until we hit a cat track that had only about 8 inches of new over the packed surface. We were joined by Peter (Freshie). We skinned the cat track to Grand Junction (none of the XC trails had been packed and no tracks either), then up to the top of the Silver Fir lift. There was about 30 inches of newer snow over the rained-on base, lighter on top and denser below. First did two runs on the top part of Outback - barely steep enough with all of the new snow and turns had to be minimal to keep up the speed. Then west to a run on Golden Nugget - same story. Then west again (thankfully on cat tracks) to Parachute. This was steep enough to actually do turns, but same need to keep the speed up. The snow was good for Snoqualmie and especially for Snoqualmie in November, but not effortless powder. Coverage seemed good over runs that have well groomed terrain underneath, but other runs did not look so attractive. It was good to get out into new snow and start getting the trailbreaking muscles into shape.