May 17, 2003, Birthday Tour -- WaPass

The drive up found slush on the road at Oso, just w of Darrington, made me sort of glad the snowtires were still on the car. Turned into pure rain from Darrington to the beginning of the sr20 climb. No real road problems. Still lots of coverage left at Blue Lake TH. The restroom mostly snowed in. Had between one inch to 6 inches light winter-like stuff on top of a bulletproof base. It was so light I just had to do a north run before climbing the Cornice of Death (standard condition). Top 500 gossamer light and with less coverage, one started hitting old bumps and such so back up and over. Couple of boarder dudes wanted to fly off the cornice and several of us there were egging them on but they showed some judgement (yeah, I know that is an oxymoron).
Madison Ave was silky and effortless so one more time up. Good deal of flat light, vistas in and out. Met some patrollers on the way to Copper Notch where we found the last 200 bulletproof (thank you harsheisen) and 35 mph beeze at the notch. Lots of avy debris under the powder providing a somewhat bumpy return down Kangaroo Valley. Should improve with some of the east of the crest sun this week. Is this the best day tour in the WAPass area. Burgdorfer says in his guide that Silverstar is "as good as it gets" in the introduction to that description. Maybe a topic for the general topic board.
The Cutthroat bowls still had good coverage. Coverage thinned markedly below 4000 on the drive out. This area would be a fine area for a Memorial weekend of turns.