Frost my fanny its bottomless pow!

Days: November 23, 24, 25 of 2006
Destination: East Peak - Crystal Mountain, WA

Eli


Day 1
Restricted access to my favorite areas has forced me to formulate a new strategy.  Nomad from splitboard.com had expressed a degree of interest in touring over gobble gobble day weekend.  So did Squirell99 from TGR.  With all eyes on the telemetry it was soon settled.  So much new snow with so much more coming that the only way you could go wrong is if you didn't go.

The drive to Crystal went just like any other drive that you've done so many times.  With the heavy snow I had to put the brights on for the jump into hyperspace.  Soon upon arriving at the lot Squirrell99 realized he had left his transceiver, shovel and probe back at home.  Bummer.  He had to settle for bottomless in the resort.  Boo whoo!  Without hesitation Nomad and I continued on our journey until being stopped by a patroller who made us sign in.  No problem but when asked where we would be touring we were greeted with "no you can't go there or there or there".  Whatever.  This is taking too much time already.  So to avoid any further hassle and many stink eyes we headed towards East Peak.



Soon after skinning the bombs started going off.  After exiting the cat track it got deep.  You know its deep when you sink 2-3ft while trying to break trail.  I looked over at Nomad and just smiled.  It's gonna be a long day I exclaimed.



Due to the possible avi danger and torments of mother nature a decision was made to stay in the trees and make alot of switchbacks.  By 11ish at 5600ft a pit was dug to the ground on a southwest facing aspect in the high 20's low 30's degree range.  Findings: around 10'' of bomber base with a rain crust layer about 1-2'' thick with 20-30'' of new snow on top.  It was clear to see that the last 6-8'' of snow fell at really cold temps.  Below that finger pokes were met with increasing resistance the further down I probed.  However we did notice a layer just above the rain crust, about 1-2'' thick, where the crystals were faceted and could be hollowed out but with effort.  The cooling right after the rains.  Columns were seperated and shear and compression tests applied.  The top 6-8'' sluffed or should I say blown off with ease.  The remaining new snow layers seemed well bonded with each other down to the rain crust.  We were unable to get a clean shear on the rain crust layer after some pounding and prying but with more snow loading and cold temps, something to look out for.



Day 2
Dropped some lines out the night before and on my first bite was Jimjar.  Would there be anyone else??  Common I know you turkey eaters are dying to burn off those newly acquired pounds.  Preston, Alex and Greydon Clark from TGR both showed a sign of interest.  The 3 of us waited as long as we could and decided that 3 would have to work.  Within minutes of skinning my cell rang and the echos of people bailing filled my ears.  Ba humbug!  Once we reached the junction I laughed.  Judging by the fact that our skin track was erased and our tracks faintly visible, one could only assume that anywhere from 1-2ft had fallen and even more with the wind.



Retracing our route from the previous day was not an option.  The slope looked heavily wind loaded.  An alternate line was taken through the trees until a small open slope was reached.  This aspect and elevation would ultimately prove to be the crux of this trip.



I thought the day would never come.  A day when I muttered the words "boy am I happy to see somebody behind us".  Two splitters from the Vancouver, Wa area who had caught up with us about 200 or so feet shy of the ridge line.  The guy was rockin a 195 swallowtail so all the kickturns his lady friend was doing just sucked for him.

From the just below the summit we proceeded to take the plunge.  Once again words cannot describe the next few moments...