February 3, Red Mountain, Snoqualmie Pass

Met up with Dan (hefeweizen) in the Snoqualmie West parking lot at 8 to go ski Red Mountain.  The hope was to catch some sun-warmed turns before the rain moved in on us in the afternoon.  We started following the summer trail, but left it after a while since it seemed to be a waste of time.  The maze of snowshoer tracks led us astray a few more times throughout the day, but finally we broke out of the trees on Red's slopes.  The slopes were pretty icy so we booted up the mountain often following old kicked steps, sometimes kicking our own through the crust.  We took in the great views at top, but alas the sun was not doing much appearing on the day, and with dark clouds moving in we decided to get after it and avoid the rain.  The ski down was better than expected, yielding firm and pleasantly steep turns down the west face.  From there it was back to the bobsled track past numerous terrified snowshoers  :D  I think car to car it took us a little more than 4.5hrs, with the rain starting shortly afterwards.

Great day despite the so-so conditions!