december 24, 2006, silver peak

After an epic day at stevens pass, powder fever had set in and it was off to snowqualmie pass.  After a pleasant skin in, we started breaking trail through the woods up silver peak.  After a few hundred feet, the wind really picked up and the snow became pretty slabby.  We dug a pit - 3" hard slab, inconsistently bonded with the layer below.  A few cuts resulted pretty stable conditions, so we kept going up.  At around 5200', the snow got much harder, and it really wasn't worth the effort.  Taking care to avoid open areas, we crused down in the windpack.  We headed up for a second lap, and then back to the car.