Kendall Knob - 12.31.08

Dan and I headed out to the Kendall Knob/clear cut area for some quick backcountry turns this morning. It turns out we didn't stay long.

What I have been learning is you need speed to easily execute turns in deep powder. I managed to do that last week at Hyak. However, trees were added to the equation today, and this made it more difficult to want to go fast. It is all a learning curve. On a positive note, I did not hit any trees. I did crash hard when catching a ski on buried alder.

Dan and I found the snow to be deep. Skinning was tiring. It snowed and the wind blew the whole time we were out. Dan had difficulty extricating himself a few times. I had difficulty with the one crash. A little more snow coverage would have made things somewhat easier.

We dug a snow pit at our high point to investigate the snow pack. Mostly soft snow for the top 30". We did a tap test and were able to have a 4" top slide with wrist taps on a fairly low angle slope. (~25° heavily treed) Often we heard the Alpental ski patrol bombing the slopes. (It was sort of scary.)

We made one run through the trees, and called it quits. By the time we left, I90 Eastbound was closed.

Dan breaking trail through trees

The view before conditions deteriorated.

Hyak - 12.20.08

What a difference a week makes. Although not in temperatures. (Telemetry shows the temp at Hyak today never exceeded 8°F during the time we were there.)

Julie and I headed to Hyak for a skin/ski trip. Snoqualmie has not yet opened Hyak or Alpental, due to "lack of snow." While it was adequate for skiing, it was probably not suitable for commercial skiing. A few more feet should hide the remaining conifer tops and all the alder. We decided on this location due to the 'short' drive, and moderate to high avalanche danger. Also, there was a "deadly" storm scheduled to hit later in the day, and we wanted to be home before that.

There were quite a few people out with the same idea. But, not as many as I saw last week at the Silver Basin. There was about a dozen or so "backcountry" skiers there. Probably a half dozen Nordic skiers and a few snowshoers. (Or is that slowshoers?)

The idea was to skin under the Keechelus Chair and then figure out what made sense for the descent. Under the chair was somewhat skied out, but it was the obvious line. There was a nice skin track on the way up, and we had no issues arriving at the top. At least that is what I thought. Julie lagged behind a bit, but I believed it to be because this was her first skin since the spring. When she arrived at the top, she explained that her back was bothering her and she was unsure about how the descent would affect it.

After some mulling about, we decided to descend under the chair. (The way we came up.) Julie was interested in attempting some powder as she did not have great success last season with deep powder. I too was interested, as my ski day last Sunday was less than ideal. We took our time on the way down with a couple of stops for Julie to reattach her ski. Near the bottom, we took the cat track as it didn't have as many alder branches sticking through it. (It didn't have any actually.) It was an alright run.

It was now 10:45am. Due to her back, Julie did not feel up to another run. I negotiated with her that I would head up and be back to the car by noon. To my surprise, I was able to skin all the way to the top and have a nice run back down in time to leave the parking lot at 11:55am. The second run was really nice for me. I was able to link turns and build some speed. I crashed once and arrived back at the car with snow pouring out of my clothes. I skied well.

(Photo by Julie Labrecque)

My photos are here.

Silver Basin - 12.14.08

With a cold snap in effect, and recent heavy snowfall, Dan, Chris and I headed to Crystal Mountain to access some backcountry snow.

We left Seattle around 6am with a temp around 28°. The web told us that it was currently 1° in the Crystal Mountain parking lot. We hoped the temp would rise. The drive out was long due to snowy roads from Seattle all the way to the ski area. It was still in single digits as we left the parking lot to go ski. Ski patrol told us there were a few sloughs on Saturday, but avy danger was low. They also told us that there was zero chance of precip (which directly conflicted with the 50% change the NWS forecast.) It ended up snowing a bit while we were out, and the temp was still only 8° when we returned to the car.

The skin in is fairly easy and uneventful. We skinned under the Quicksilver chair at the ski area, then you go through the woods and over the lake to the Basin. (Not grandmother's house.) The upper basin looked really steep from below, but after skiing it, I would say it was a mild black diamond run.

We made a decision on our first runs not to skin to the top and ski the main/middle portion of the bowl. We instead traversed out to skier's left and had a run down there. Turning in the deep powder was difficult for me. And I really had to stay pointed downhill if I wanted to keep moving as the snow was slow. My first run was uneventful and made me feel good that I didn't fall, but no so great, as I wasn't having an easy time with the conditions.

Dan and Chris agreed that the first run was a bit short and wanted to reach the top of the ridge for the second run. I agreed, although I knew it would be just more distance I may be struggling to ski down. Skinning up to the top seemed more tiring, even though it was not that much further. Perhaps it was all the time we spent outside in single digit (negative?) temps? On the way to the top, there were 11 people ahead of us. (The Silver Basin probably saw 30+ skiers/boarder on Sunday.) We thought there might be competition for lines and crowding. However, in the last 50' of vertical to the ridge, there were 30mph sustained winds. No longer was the condition light powder, but wind blown and crusty. Dan reached the ridge first and tried to hide in the trees from the wind. I arrived and started my transition. When Chris arrived Dan took off to make room for him. I waited until Chris was mostly transitioned and I headed down. The first few turns on the windblown were predictable and decent. Below that the slope transitioned back into deep powder where I fell a few times. I met up with the guys and we decided that going back to the car was a good idea. (It also appeared that most of the others who came out to the basin felt that way as the crowds disappeared after our second run. We then skied out and back to the car.

Unfortunately for me, this was a reminder of how difficult it is for me to ski backcountry powder. I am definitely getting better at it, but it is not easy for me. I feel that next time I need to be a bit more aggressive and I will ski better.

My limited pics are here.
Dan's trip report on Turns All Year.