Home > Trip Reports > January 13, 2008, Snoqualmie Pass

January 13, 2008, Snoqualmie Pass

1/13/08
WA Snoqualmie Pass
3380
4
Posted by silaswild on 1/13/08 7:13am
What a difference a day makes!  Cool sunny morning with crusty snow and craters below 3800'.  Great Cascade powder above 4500' and stable where we fortunately were.  Even open slopes were good, some had slightly wind firmed powder, some had 6-8" nice powder atop a firmer layer.  Thanks to Gary for the photos to help us remember the experience.
even this short report makes me miss the pnw.  enjoy that stuff for me silas!!  ;)

It was a beautiful morning up there. I thought the snow above 4k was pretty fun still, the tree skiing below that was challenging. In the transition between 4k and higher the snow was kind weird. It was squishing more than compacting. I wondered if there were going to be wet slides later in the day on sun exposed stuff. I ski cut and skied some small 30 degrees plus slopes and all was well in the Kendall area.

We found similar conditions where we were at the pass.  It was suprisingly good skiing above 4000ft.  Both on N and S facing slopes.  The sunshine didn't hurt the enjoyment factor either.

Most areas above 4,000ft were wind buffed.  Hand pits at both 4,400ft and 5,000ft on NNW facing slopes (~30-35degrees) found 3 distict layers in the top 2-3 feet of snow.  The first layer was 4" deep.  The second layer was ~12" deeper.  The third layer was ~12" deeper than the second.  It appeared settlement had occured.  It took a good pull to get the layers to move.  All three layers broke cleanly.  The bottom two layers were a bit crumbly.  The top layer was more cohesive.

Before we skied a group of at least a dozen snowshoers put a good test on the slope my trampling up and down the center of it.

No signs of snow instabilty when skiing.


That snow was sooooo goooooooooood!!!!!






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january-13-2008-snoqualmie-pass
silaswild
2008-01-13 15:13:51