Feb 18-19, Lake Josephine

It's a miracle this trip got off the ground, from unfavorable weather reports discouraging potential partners, to unfavorable avy forecasts changing destinations.  Andy G., a young mountaineer oriented snow boarder recently located to the area, answered my last minute plea for partners to travel to Wildcat Lake.  The avy forcast for Monday PM had me casting about for other, less committing destinations so I put a call in to Adam at Pro Ski and he suggested this as an alternative.  In my mind a good choice, allowing a total wilderness feel with easy access. 
We got started with the rest of the crowd at Stevens a little after 9, having to boot up in the snow and wind to Tye Saddle through the area.  More or less following the PCT under Rooster Comb(?) presented little difficulty as there had been enough snow to cover the crust well and it seemed well adhered, but the wind was constant and at times intense.  We were able to ascend the gully to the tarns easily and were fortunate to find a spot of calm on the edge of the lake bowl.  We decided to make our camp there, but the day was early so we dropped our overnight gear and began heading for Peak 5463, mainly because that was about the only thing we could see in all the snow.  We followed the s.w. trending ridge line, which was wind swept and icy, making easy climbing on snow shoes and ski crampons.  Some avy assessment at the top revealed about 8"s of powder on a soft rain crest with decent adhesion.  A ski cut on a roll over mound got about a 6" release  with about 3-4' of diagonal propagation in either direction which landed on the slope below and slowly slid to a stop without engaging any more snow.  A quick ski pole check of the slope angle indicated 20-25 deg.  A few more stomping cuts showed no instability so the green flag was raised and the tips were pointed down.  We were showing some big, totally legal smiles at the lake, having some of the finest float in quite some time.  We then began an ascending traverse towards Peak 5863, making about 5200' when our turnaround time arrived.  It was more of the same back down to the lake.  As we crossed back to our camp we could see all these cool gully's dropping through the cirque from the surround plateau.  After we got the megamid set up, Andy left to harvest one of the gully's while I settled in, returning with enthusiasm, having never boarded before in such sweet conditions.
A hearty dinner led to a good night sleep with the snow still falling.
The next morning we grabbed another run down another gully before breaking camp and heading back up Peak 5463 for a descent of the ridge trending north then east to a creek at 4200'.  The ridge was forested on the left right to the crest, but then open on the right, dropping down into the bowl.  Travel along the crest was difficult due to wind ridging, so we traversed along trying to maintain altitude, looking for runs, but finding a very steep band of trees and chutes blocking our way.  Not having very much visibility in the thickening snowfall didn't help.  We had originally planned to cross the stream beginning at 4400' and then descend, but ended up dropping in a sucker hole a little too soon and ended up getting blocked by the very steep and rock stream course.    We side slipped our way down a steep, icy, tightly treed pitch, kicking off a good slough in the one opening we crossed during this section.  Fortunately, this dropped us right into a nice lower angle open boulder field that compensated for the tenseness of the previous going.  That led to a patch of widely spaced old growth with a natural half pipe for Andy and then we were out to the power line trail.  Thinking our trip was almost over we began hiking up the road to the lifts, arriving just in time to see them stop.  So we booted up the road into the grapnel filled wind, getting soaked and ice covered in the process.  It was after dark when the lights of the lifts began shining through the swirling snow and we could point our tips down to the lodge.  I felt a certain jolt at the transformation from wilderness travel to modern civilization, but was glad to have a hot coffee in hand.
My thanks to Andy for being an enthusiastic partner with a bag of unexpected culinary delights, and thanks to Adam for suggesting such a fun destination when I was suffering mental vapor lock.  As Ted would say, "A most excellent adventure".