We did a little tour of the Skyline Ridge area today. Kirsten and I had not skied this area before and we were pleasantly surprised to find a lot of fun slopes on the northwest side running down into the valley below Lichtenberg. We worked our way around the valley, skiing three different slopes before we ran out of time. Our goal was to get back to the highway by 2 o'clock to beat the traffic on the way back to town. It was tempting to keep skiing because the snow was pretty nice, but in the end the prospect of sitting in traffic seemed worse than cutting the day short. What that tells me, I don't know, but I'm sure there's a conclusion to be drawn there. :)
Only the first weekend of January, and already it has been an incredible winter. Incredible in terms of the quentity and quality of snow that has fallen in the past month, and incredible in terms of the number of people who have suffered because of that snowfall. I believe the fatality total has reach double digits in the Pacific Northwest, making it one of the worst winters recorded here. Naturally, we decided to exercise caution this weekend with another foot or two supposed to fall.
On Saturday, we went to Mt. Catherine -- a small peak at Snoqualmie Pass with a safe approach and nice, moderate-to-low-angled tree skiing. Andy tried to bring Tundra along, but they wouldn't allow him on the cross-country trails, so Andy had to put him back in the car for the day. Tundra wasn't too happy about that. We took the Hyak lift up to the top and skied down the other side to the x-country trails and skated around to the base of Catherine. We broke trail through several inches of new snow, putting in a track that gradually ascended while traversing to the west. We reached the steeper slopes flanking Catherine and dug some test pits finding that the snow on the northern slopes were pretty stable. The top 8 inches sloughed off easily, but not in a slab, and the rest of the pack would not budge off of the crust 3 feet down without considerable effort.
After climbing the rest of the way up to the summit ridge, we took two laps through the trees. The snow was nice & fluffy, although the slough ran pretty fast and heavy on steeper slopes, and required attention. It was already getting late in the afternoon when we finished our second lap, so we headed back to Hyak and skied out. The sudden transition to the hardpack in the resort was tough to get used to after all the soft snow in the backcountry, but we managed to slide our way out. I tried out my 2006 K2 Anti Pistes for the first time in the backcountry, and they were super fun in the snow, but they seem like they might be a bit too much ski for me in the backcountry. Might have to get those fancy new Anti Pistes that are over a pound lighter per ski!
On Sunday, we went to our old faithful, Yodelin at Stevens Pass. There were quite a few other skiers out, including Ema with a couple of her friends. Someone put in a great skin track on Saturday or early Sunday. Stability was very similar to Catherine, but without the top layer sloughing. We took two laps through the trees, where the occasionaly tree bomb under the new snow kept us on our toes, then hit the clearcut for one rando rally lap through 8 inches or so of nice unaffected new snow on a firm base. Went back up one more time for our exit out the front side, hitting the road shortly after 2 to beat the Stevens traffic. Snow depth was great all the way to the parking lot -- the switchback shortcuts were in great shape. Fantastic day out. Yodelin seems to take a lot of traffic pretty well -- despite all the people, we didn't cross many tracks. More importantly, Andy made amends with Tundra and is back in his good graces.
Mt Baker Backcountry, WA Herman Saddle/Table Mountain December 8, 2007
Earlier this week, I wasn't optimistic for good snow over the weekend. After a couple feet of snow last weekend, around 5 inches of rain fell on Monday, give or take a couple inches, then the freezing level dropped to near the surface the rest of the week and it was mostly dry, so I figured snow in the mountains would be bullet-proof ice. But reports starting coming out of Mt. Baker that they had received several inches of dry snow towards the end of the week, so Kirsten, Andy, Pete, Becky, and I headed up on Saturday. Pete & Becky decided to join us at the last hour when Pete bailed on his surfing plans due to reports that there was possible contamination in the water from the flooding, and Becky found out she didn't need to stay in town for work.
It felt a little weird to be going out in the backcountry after the deaths, injuries, rescues and disappearances of around a dozen people in Washington last weekend related to the big dump of snow we had, and there was a bit of a pallor over the backcountry community all week. In fact, Marcus, whose enthusiasm for skiing is mostly unbridled, chose to stay home. But snow conditions this weekend were about as stable as they get. All the previous snow was consolidated down into a solid substrate that the new snow was well bonded to. And to make things better, the weather was picture perfect. Cold. Really freaking cold. But clear, and it's hard to beat a clear day in the mountains in the winter.
Skinning in, we passed several large groups practicing avy rescue. It was nice to see so many people take it upon themselves to learn the skill. After a while we arrived at Herman saddle and thought we saw some nice snow on a slope southwest of Herman Saddle, but when we got to it we found a thick, wind-scoured crust. So we skied the east slope of the north subpeak of Table Mountain. The snow was pretty decent, though the crust below the new snow was more apparent than we would have liked. We couldn't head out with just one run skied, so we headed back up the skin track, circled around across Herman Saddle, then headed toward the prominent gully running down northeast from Table Mountain's summit, stopping once to yo-yo a short pitch. We skinned all the way up to the ridge crest just north of the summit, and as the sun dipped close to the horizon, we started down. The snow here was great -- no evidence of the crust for most of it, and after picking our way through a cliff band, ran it out all the way to the valley floor.
After skinning back out through Bagley Lakes and down to the parking lot, we planned to cheer the good day at the North Fork. We had a fun day, despite an abnormal amount of gear problems: Kirsten's Dynafit binding toepiece kept releasing on one traverse, then her skin glue failed; Andy lost the tail clip for one of his skins, then the toe loop on the same skin broke. The North Fork was packed though, so we stopped farther downstream at the Skagit Brewer, which it should be noted is not a bad fall-back plan at all, and then you've a shorter drive to endure the food & beer coma.
Crystal Backcountry Skiing, WA Bullion Basin & Crown Point December 1, 2007
Winter is finally here. We had some big dumps of snow in the mountains in September and October, but November was mostly dry and warm until the past week. Andy, Pete, Mica, Marcus, Kirsten, Tundra and I left the Crystal backcountry parking lot at 9 o'clock or so and headed toward Bullion Basin. After a couple hours of skinning, sometimes on nice old road cuts and sometimes busting through thick, only partially covered underbrush, we reached the ridge above Bullion Basin. The sun peeked out for a few minutes midway up to Crown Point, then dark storm clouds rolled in and the snow and wind picked up. Pete dug a test pit on a NE aspect and found some marginal conditions. We ski cut the runs and the top couple inches of unconsolidated snow ran downhill fast, but nothing else moved. Then the joy began and we all floated 500 feet downhill on crazy hero powder, bouncing in and out of the turns, hooting and hollering. What a way to start December! We broke trail back up to the top and took another run. The snow was falling heavily at this point, and strong winds were transporting a lot of it onto the slope we were on, so we called it a day and headed back out. We avoided much of the nasty brush that we skinned up on by staying on the road, dropping about 1,000 feet in a snowplow. Then, with quads burning, the road threw one last thing at us: a minefield of sharp, softball-sized rocks lurking just below the surface at the end. We tried to forget about that though, and as we chowed down on burgers and beer at the Naches Tavern and watched the snow falling outside , we just thought of bouncy, fluffy powder. Yum.
