April 27, 2008, bowl below The Tooth
4/27/08
WA Snoqualmie Pass
2680
1
We (party of 2) headed out of the Alpy upper parking lot about 10:30AM. Hardly any oncoming traffic from Aply slackcountry skiers returning on the cat track trail, made me wonder if the 'Nass bc gate even opened on Sunday? The Avy report warned about wet slides and as we reached the Source Lake area, we witness and heard countless wet sluffs and point releases coming off the higher steeper cliffs (mainly on the N-NE aspects). Lots of debris from point releases on almost all aspects.
We continued to skin up the bowl to the saddle point east of the Tooth. Saw no other skiers up that way, in fact saw maybe only a couple of other parties in the Source Lake area, which I though was strange considering last weekend. Two ambitious rock climbers were scaling The Tooth, dropping snow while they ascended; we thought they must really (better) know what they are doing, because of all the debris falling of the adjacent cliffs that afternoon.
Conditions: Overcast most of the day, with some sun breaks later afternoon. Temp started at 55*F, warmed up to 64*F. Snow got progressively heavier and sticky as the day went on. Ate lunch at the top of saddle, around 1:30pm. Dug a quick pit towards top of saddle just for kicks, 34deg slope, N aspect, CT found a deeply buried weak layer, about 2.5-3 ft down, fractured (failed) on CT28.
Descended down the bowl, snow was wet and sticky as we expected, too bad it did not stay a bit cooler cause there was plenty of untracked goodness there, but this day it tended to grab the skis all the way down (perhaps a quick wax at the top would have helped a bit). Made our way down the gully back into the valley. Snow was actually better (consolidated) in that last gully section and a better ski. Took the ski track back to the parking lot. Overall a nice tour, but nothing like last weekends pow.
We continued to skin up the bowl to the saddle point east of the Tooth. Saw no other skiers up that way, in fact saw maybe only a couple of other parties in the Source Lake area, which I though was strange considering last weekend. Two ambitious rock climbers were scaling The Tooth, dropping snow while they ascended; we thought they must really (better) know what they are doing, because of all the debris falling of the adjacent cliffs that afternoon.
Conditions: Overcast most of the day, with some sun breaks later afternoon. Temp started at 55*F, warmed up to 64*F. Snow got progressively heavier and sticky as the day went on. Ate lunch at the top of saddle, around 1:30pm. Dug a quick pit towards top of saddle just for kicks, 34deg slope, N aspect, CT found a deeply buried weak layer, about 2.5-3 ft down, fractured (failed) on CT28.
Descended down the bowl, snow was wet and sticky as we expected, too bad it did not stay a bit cooler cause there was plenty of untracked goodness there, but this day it tended to grab the skis all the way down (perhaps a quick wax at the top would have helped a bit). Made our way down the gully back into the valley. Snow was actually better (consolidated) in that last gully section and a better ski. Took the ski track back to the parking lot. Overall a nice tour, but nothing like last weekends pow.
1.21 gigawatts? 1.21 gigawatts? Great Scott!
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