March 9, 2003, Hex Mtn

After a great day on the lifts Friday, we wanted to breath hard and wanted to get the dogs out, so we headed east to Hex where we were pretty sure we could safely get high up on the ridge despite the predicted high avalanche conditions on the east slopes. We knew it wasn't going to be glory skiing, so we slept in a bit and started up at mid-day. Fortunately, some snowshoers had stomped an admirably deep trough out earlier in the morning which meant no deep wet snow trailbreaking, and the dogs had zero postholing while in their track. We had simultaneous sun and light rain for much of the climb partway up the ridge, to up near the massive new westfacing clearcut. We decided to enjoy the view and go down from there. It was clear that the snow all the way to the top of Hex had been rained on, and it was HEAVY (turning from slush to heavy snowman snow as we reached our high point about 1700ft above the car). The ski down was silly but easy, pusing heavy slushy snow ahead of us. We didn't dare do any of the nice steeper shots off the ridge as the snow was very heavy and cohesive with light snow still hanging out underneath. We saw nothing slide along our route though. On net it was a pretty day out with very cool weather and dramatic territorial views, but more for tour than turns.