Hurricane Ridge area, April 21

After sitting out the entire winter because of a serious shoulder injury and surgery, I decided it was time to go skiing again despite dire warnings from  my medical community.  Scotsman, Blitz, Sidnie and I set out for Hurricane ridge under threatening skies with Klahane ridge as our objective.  We reached the trailhead at 4500 ft and discover snow still  down to the road.  From the road we booted up the steep south facing slope, following steps nicely frozen from a couple of previous skiers. It began spitting snow and a cold wind kept us moving.  After a 1500ft climb we reached Klahane ridge and dug a pit on the north side above the bowl.  We found a rain crust about 12 inches down with faceted crystals but it was bonded well enough to survive a shovel compression test.  There was also a 1.5 inch crust on top.  I went first and immediately was re-acquainted with breakable crust and fell after a couple of cautious turns.  The rest of  the crew skied  the 500ft bowl  with better results and we all skinned back up  to the ridge.  The slope back to the car had softened nicely and was great skiing for 1500 ft :) through glades. 

After regrouping at the car we decided to head the rest of the way up to the Hurricane ridge lodge and try the Toilet Bowl run, about 1 mile west of the lodge.  The south slopes were starting to melt out so we opted for  the north slope which is a beautiful glade  with a series of benches for about 700 ft.  The snow was perfect corn with no breakable crust( perfect corn in the toilet bowl)  After a bunch of great turns we skinned back to the trail/road and back to the lodge.

It was great to be back in the mountains again. Everyone forgot their cameras but I took some pictures on my cell phone and will post them if I can retreive them.