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Topic: April 26th NF Chair Peak - The Euro/USA Tour (Read 1449 times)
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Scotsman
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Posts: 1800
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A few months ago a young Frenchman called Paul Cranga posted on partners wanted that he would be in Seattle in April and was looking for someone to show him around. I replied to his post and a few days ago he contacted me and we arranged to go on a tour. A few days after that, a Finnish guy called Jaakko Parkkinen, who is here for the summer,also contacted me so I invited him to join us.
To add to the fun I asked Snow Bell to come with me and he invited DaveC.
So at 6.00 am this morning we all met at Alpental and proceeded to climb up to Chair Peak Basin, our early start an attempt to beat the coming slush fest forecast by the high temperatures .
Snow Bell led the skin up to the notch above the basin and then changed to bootpack where it got steeper. Our new French buddy proceeded to skin the whole way up to the Notch, as impressive a feat of steep skinning technique as I had ever seen.
Once at the notch we where back in winter conditions with a strong cold wind blowing and quite a bit of snow transportation occurring. We traversed west from the notch but stopped where the snow felt different underfoot and it was clear some wind slab had formed. Snow Bell skied down about 100 ft to a knoll and we then invited our new friends to grab first tracks.  ;)The snow was cold wind buffed powder.
Jaakko jumped in and immediately set of a soft slab that jigsawed around him and slid down with him. It was a class 1, 10 m wide, 4-5" deep and travelled about 200'.
Jaakko handled it well and we proceeded further down with the snow getting better as we descended. Snow Bell and Paul decided to ski a steep narrow chute on skiers left at the exit to Snow lake and the rest of us skied the normal north face ramp down to the lake. By the way,
Jaakko and Paul could really ski very, very good!
From Snow Lake we toured up towards Chair Peak Lake Col, stopping short of the col as the temps had risen and snowballing had increased and things where starting to fall from the cliffs above. It was about 10.00am. We skied down to the lake with as usual , Snow Bell and his new extreme partner, Paul taking a steeper technical line on skiers right and the rest of us skiing the couloir the drops from the main knoll . The snow was turning mushy by now but the couloir was steep enough to give good turns.
Across Snow Lake and up to the divide where I passed on a lap down to the lake and had a nap in the sun while the others skied the north facing slope and found good snow.
We then proceeded down the apron which by this time was getting very slushy and wet. Time to get out of Dodge!
Mexican food in North Bend courtesy of DaveC ( thanks Dave) and swapping of e-mail addresses exchanged and new friendships formed and we now have ski buddies who live in Finland and France.
Ain't this life great.. 
Snow Bell will post pics.
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« Last Edit: 04/26/08, 07:07 PM by Scotsman »
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" All men dream:but not equally.Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in day to find that it was vanity:but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible"... T.E.Lawrence
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ron j
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Posts: 1875
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Nice report, Scotty.
Thanks fo spreading the TAY love
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"When I stop having fun I'm turnin' around"
"Remember, breaking trail and allowing old people to have fresh tracks is standard backcountry protocol." - Zap
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NWBCer
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Posts: 102
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here's to spreading the love scotsman! 
looking forward to photos...
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Stugie
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Posts: 844
WWW
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Sounds fun, thanks for sharing.
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"The mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals; the houses where I practice my religion." - Anatoli Boukreev
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Snow Bell
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Posts: 397
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Another beautiful day in the Cascades.
The early start (early for us anyway, we left Scotty's house just after 4AM) was essential as the summer like day delivered as forcasted. Despite being a weekend morning at Snoqualmie Pass, we saw only two cars at Alpental that morning. One appeared to be a couple of skiers strategically parked to access the Phantom (Slot?) and the other in the upper lot which we later found belonged to "speed flier Joe" and his winged buddy. We caught up with them up on Chair as they prepared for their flight down to Source Lake. From our vantage as we climbed over the east shoulder of Chair we were only able to see the beginning of their flight but I was happy to run into Joe again and happy that our visitors were able to see them do their thing. I believe that Paul and Jaakko were pleasantly impressed with the great terrain, snowpack and touring partners that the PNW has to offer.
Snow Bell will post pics.
Yeah..... about that: It may not be a good idea to manage photos on your PC after you have been drinking.
Just a thought.
2/3 of the photos on my SD card were randomly gone including my boys 1st birthday party pics. 
No pics of this trip survived but one photo of Jaakko (as the slide fractures under him which I emailed to Scotty) escaped just before the silent catastrophe.
Vista sucks.
Scotsman will post pic.
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Life is going to slide by you one way or another
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