March 25, 2007, - Heather Ridge/north side

lazy start this morning with heading out of seattle around 8:30...not too much traffic to the mountains, which was nice....skinned up heather ridge and to the hiker's right of Skyline Lake (to the cell phone tower)...continued left along the ridge crest before dropping down into the northern slopes...snow conditions, especially up top, were much better than expected with the new snow...and very light in spots with the occasional spray in the face...plus some of the week's snow seemed to have escaped some of the warmer temps & rain...many sun breaks throughout the day made for enjoyable temps...for our second lap we followed a skin track (heard some yelps but never actually saw another skier on the north side) that led us to the hiker's right...snow become heavier and we both caused small slides when we came to quick stops and pushed down some heavy snow...back up to the ridge, to the lake and down the sun soaked southern slopes to the car...total trip time about 5 hours...all in all a terrific day and the long break in tours was evident!!!  haha

only photo before the batteries died  >:(