March 23, 2003, Mt. Catherine
3/23/03
WA Snoqualmie Pass
3560
5
Taking a cue from our new Colorado friend who wrote about this tour 2 weeks ago, and my neighbor, Bruce Colony, Bruce and I tackled Catherine this Sunday, in hopes of catching some of that fresh pow that Jeff Renner said would be falling at 1500 feet. It was falling, alright, but right at Pass levels. We proceeded, nonetheless. Got an alpine start, since daylight is early these days, and were on the trail at 6:30 AM. Of course, no one else was crazy enough to be out that early, so we had Hyak to ourselves. This assures front row parking privileges, to be sure. Skinned up the Hyak face, and back to the base of Catherine, no problem. We made great time going up to the summit; about 3 hours. And, though we could feel the crusty lumps underneath, the snow on top was very nice!
Upon summitting, we transitoned quickly, so as to get into the good stuff. And so, as fate would have it, we both augured in our skiis on the third turn! Sure, the snow on top was great, but that only lasted for the first foot or so. We found the lumpy stuff to be quite ample, as well. However, good approximations of pow turns were made (For God's sake, it's the third day of spring in the Cascades!), until we got below the cliff bands. By then, the temps had warmed about 5 degrees since our ascent, and the tumbling dice were falling! (That would be Bruce and I).
We managed some really fun turns in the trees, and the slow snow coming into the clearcut at the bottom was a nice break from the mushy turns farther up. It, too, was mushy, but we were on cruise control by then, so it didn't matter.
Ours were the only set of tracks up there for the weekend, so we had the forest all to ourselves. It turns out that Bruce, our other neighbor Lara P. (A new continuous streaker, herself, as of 2/03!), and I had done this tour LAST March 23. We may be making this a new neighborhood annual tour.
It's great to see our spring touring base piling up. I'm looking forward to Chair Peak Basin in June and July!!
Happy tracks...Greg Lange
Upon summitting, we transitoned quickly, so as to get into the good stuff. And so, as fate would have it, we both augured in our skiis on the third turn! Sure, the snow on top was great, but that only lasted for the first foot or so. We found the lumpy stuff to be quite ample, as well. However, good approximations of pow turns were made (For God's sake, it's the third day of spring in the Cascades!), until we got below the cliff bands. By then, the temps had warmed about 5 degrees since our ascent, and the tumbling dice were falling! (That would be Bruce and I).
We managed some really fun turns in the trees, and the slow snow coming into the clearcut at the bottom was a nice break from the mushy turns farther up. It, too, was mushy, but we were on cruise control by then, so it didn't matter.
Ours were the only set of tracks up there for the weekend, so we had the forest all to ourselves. It turns out that Bruce, our other neighbor Lara P. (A new continuous streaker, herself, as of 2/03!), and I had done this tour LAST March 23. We may be making this a new neighborhood annual tour.
It's great to see our spring touring base piling up. I'm looking forward to Chair Peak Basin in June and July!!
Happy tracks...Greg Lange
Greg, that must have been you that I talked to on the XC trail?
Yep! See my reply to your TR...Greg
Nice report Greg. It's always a toss of the coin as to where to go when the snow level is suppose to be low, either the Snoqualmie area or Paradise. As you know, the snow at Snoqualmie can be really great, or not so great, but then again you have to deal with "gate wait", at Paradise. When the gate finally did open at Paradise, we were grumbling all the way to the parking lot since the road to Paradise was clear and wet and had been clear wet, with a very clear parking lot. Our whole group was disappointed that we didn't have those extra two hours of skiing and wondered what Snoqualmie would have been like. Looks like we did go in the right direction this time, even if we did have to wait 8)
Mad Dog: The last gatewait I did was in November. Left at 4:30 AM, sure to be on snow by 7:30. Nope; it was 9:15 before it happened, and we had the same experience - "Where's the !@#$%^&* snowplow? It's not needed!" As I said, we had a blast in the variable condiitons/snow.
Hope to tour with you and Ron this summer. My next gig is in Italy for 6 days, just west of the Dolomites. Hut time!!...Greg
Hope to tour with you and Ron this summer. My next gig is in Italy for 6 days, just west of the Dolomites. Hut time!!...Greg
Greg, we'll be looking forward to skiing with you this summer. Have a great time in Italy!!
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