www.turns-all-year.com Year-round backcountry telemark skiing in the Pacific Northwest Turns All Year: Previous Home Page Galleries These are image galleries which have appeared on the Turns All Year home page in the past. Most are from backcountry skiing trips in the Washington Cascade Mountains, to such places as Mt. Rainier, Mt. Baker, and Mt. Adams. Most thumbnail images on this page can be clicked to view the full-sized image, and lead into a slide show sequence for that gallery. List Galleries            < Older  Browse Galleries  Newer >

Turns All Year CD-ROM The complete version of this photo gallery is now available on Turns All Year CD-ROM. Below you can view thumbnail photos from this gallery. Turns All Year CD-ROM contains over 180 photo galleries, containing more than 3200 full-sized photos, from backcountry skiing and snowboarding trips in the Pacific Northwest.

from May 20, 2002: May 16, 2002:  Snoqualmie Mountain, Snoqualmie Pass, Washington Up through the forest Mike tops a cornice Up the steep lower ridge Upper ridge and summit Nick on top Starting down Charles on the upper ridge Nick having fun Nick toward the steep part Charles on the steep part #1 Charles on the steep part #2 Mike descending in old-growth Photos by Mike Barton and Charles Eldridge.

Associated trip report: "Constrained on both ends of the day by child-care duties, Nick, Mike and I opted for this close-by and relatively short trip. We started hiking from the Alpental Road on the climber's left of Commonwealth Creek, climbing into Commonwealth Basin and then up to the Guye-Snoqualmie saddle. Plenty of snow everywhere (the ski areas don't even have any bare spots yet!), and the snow in the forest was neither excessively dirty nor chunky/icy. From the saddle we skinned to the base of the steep south ridge of Snoqualmie Mountain and then up it. With the clear skies and warm sun the steepest south-facing slopes had gotten somewhat mushy (pole plant easily went into the top 1 foot of granular snow), but still stable enough. Above about 5500' the snow became (mostly) walkable crust, and we went back to booting up. Spectacular views from the summit (Baker, Glacier, Stuart, and Rainier were all visible), and especially impressive was the amount of snow still left, considering it is mid-May. There had been a lot of recent avalanche activity on the slopes of surrounding peaks, and NE-NW aspects were especially trashed (eg Alpental peaks), so much so that there was little unaffected snow left in some areas.   The ski down was enjoyable, a long series of rolls going down the ridge, at first on a firm corn surface coated with a little recent new snow and then in the deeper mush. On the steepest section near the bottom of the ridge one of my turns set off a surface slide which threatened to sweep my skis out from under me on the next turn, but I managed to stay upright as the slide passed. The ski from the Guye-Snoqualmie saddle down through the old-growth forest to the flats of Commonwealth Basin was reasonable, and only unpleasant where turns had to be made in old hole-filled avalanche debris which had come down from Guye Peak. We were able to ski all the way to the car." Charles Eldridge

List Galleries            < Older  Browse Galleries  Newer >

Photos ©2006 Turns All Year LLC www.turns-all-year.com  (copyright info here)