January 19 - 23, Washington Pass

It had been a dream of mine for many years to re-explore the Washington Pass area in the winter.
This year, it finally came together as I met my friend Jim from Jackson in Twisp on Friday night. He had graciously dragged his two snow mobiles from Bozeman at 55 mph.
We embarked with overcast skies with a fully loaded sled towed behind the larger of the two snow machines with the idea of camping at the Overlook. That plan did not come together as the snow was deep and the last and largest avalanche path had covered the road with a 50 ft berm, of course some real sledheads punched through it in the subsequent days. We instead turned back after burying the sleds many times and set up camp at the Cutthroat lake TH, thereafter re-christened camp "frosty balls" and made another run for gas and supplies, sledding into Mazama for gas and coffee.
The 20th we skied up towards Cutthroat Pass in bad vis and poor snow, much wind effect and thick trees. That evening things got frosty with temps near zero by the morning of the 21st.
The 21st we parked the sleds at the hairpin and skied the road to Blue Lake and then up to the saddle below Blue Lake Peak. Had a nice run on the west side and then back out in time to see the heli folks drop people down the chute to the hairpin, it did not slide.
The 22nd, after another frosty night, we did a run down the west side of the EW group cirque and then a run down the wind packed chute to the hairpin, which was kind of wind effected snow. North slopes were wind affected and variable, south facing slopes looked scary with crust and sun warming.
Jan 23 was a rest day in town and the decision was made, based on very cold temps and only average snow conditions to bail on the last couple of days of the trip. A frosty trip back up to break camp and off we went.
Was amazing to have the Liberty bell/EW spires to ourselves (although the heli folks threatened to invade, they never did). The really good lines appear hard to get to without spending the whole day under hang fire and the days were short. The locals were mostly skiing closer to town and likely knew where the good goods were.  An amazing piece of real estate in the winter, a pain to get to, which I think is what has saved it so far. Felt more like AK then WA.