February 17, 2008, Ollalie Meadows and Silver Pk

At Snoqualmie Pass this AM David K and I booted up hard corduory along Silver Fir lift then skied on metal edge fishscales zig zag routes up to Nordic Pass and Windy Pass and Olallie Meadows following the blue diamond blazed route when we came to it. Variable snow, but generally a couple of inches of recent on top of a non-breakable crust. Softened some in the sun and got heavy and balled up in places, but much of the open areas stayed cool so the top unconsolidated snow was fairly heavy but skied OK. Later in the PM in the forest it was wet and well lubricated coming down.  The steep downhill forest section before Olallie Meadows was survival mode on our light gear. Trees have generally done bombing and were just raining a bit of more recent light frosting. 
We went up the top edge of the meadows along the trees and met Fred R and David M who had camped out in nice snow caves - great snow for that - and were just returning from our ultimate destination of Silver Peak basin. Met two other tele skiers on the way there. Silver Pk basin had 1 to 3 inches of soft to wind-packed powder on the east side and was icier on the west. Lots of avy debris on the west from tree bombs and steep slope slides, covered by more recent. A few small areas on east with snow spills from trees. The basin is very filled in and felt very stable. We stayed climbers left and went near but not onto upper bench or arm. Nice untracked ride out and down across the meadows.
pix here