January 19, 2007, Guye Peak Loop (Dawn Patrol)

Tim and Rob showed up at my place at 5am this morning and we zipped up to the Summit West parking area and started up the PCT into Commonwealth Basin over a light crust. The skinning was fast and we quickly made the distance up to the meadow at 3650' where we made an exciting stream crossing. Plunge stepping brought us down, and we improvised a ladder on the other side by shoving our skis into the snow embankment.

More skinning brought us up through light snowfall to near the top of Cave Ridge, where the morning light started to reveal the surrounding peaks. At the Guye/Snoqualmie saddle, we stopped for a quick snack and dug a pit on a west facing aspect. The rain crust that was so tough last week was about 8 inches down and started to weaken, although not too much. Under that was nearly four inches of snow that was starting to show some faceting. On top of the crust the snow remained relatively unconsolidated under the light crust from last night. Further down in the snowpack, a second buried crust was down nearly 3'. The snow on both sides of that one looked like it had been through a few freeze/thaw cycles and the whole thing was pretty well bonded. Shovel testing caused the top crust to fail with 3 blows from the shoulder.

Armed with that information, we stripped the skins and started down toward Alpental. We descended maybe a quarter mile south of Phantom over an initial steep drop, then through some nice upper bowls. About level with the Phantom waterfall we encountered very steep trees that opened up onto continuously steep open slopes with some exposed rock steps here and there. Between the angle and the sluffing snow it was exciting, but quite manageable.

Below the business section, we skied down through more open terrain and back to the Alpental access road, then walked back to the car. Since it was snowing while we were on the trail we didn't get many pictures, but it sure was a fun tour before work!