Chikamin Peak from Hyak,
looking up Gold Creek Valley | 
Toward Twin Lakes,
with Silver Peak above | 
Skinning though mature
forest near Windy Pass |
First glades near the
NE arm of Silver Peak | 
Skinning up an opening at
the end of the NE arm | 
Close up of part of
Silver Peak's NE arm |
Booting in the sun nearing the
upper bowl of Silver Peak | 
Skinning in the
Silver Peak upper bowl | 
Sunshine at the top of the
knob in the upper bowl |
Charles poses on the knob,
with Granite Peak | 
David gets some sunny turns
on the south side of the knob | 
More David sunny knob turns |
West facing sunny turns,
heading toward the NW arm | 
North facing turns on the
edge of Silver Peak NW arm | 
The layer of new snow
was thin but still beautiful |
Low contrast winter
north facing slope | 
Nice snow in the glade
zone inside the NW arm | 
Skiing the glades in the
lower NW arm of Silver Peak |
Booting in sunny forest from
Windy Pass to Nordic Pass | 
Granite Mountain from
Rockdale viewpoint | 
Kaleetan Peak, Chair Peak,
Bryant Peak, and The Tooth |
The snow was good
even at Hyak! | 
Yee-haw, gotta get some
speed for those last turns | 
An unrivaled backcountry
skiing experience |
Photos by David Nicholson and Charles Eldridge
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Backcountry skiing trip report:
Twin Lakes-Silver Peak bowl-Nordic Pass loop, Snoqualmie Pass, Washington, February 15, 2006
Don't know what happened to that 9" of new snow that supposedly fell Monday night. The snow in the forest was horrible, virtually no new snow over refrozen snow, and we didn't try to do any turns there. The snow in the open was fabulous, but was mostly a uniform 3 to 4 inches between 2500 feet to 5200 feet. Turns on steeper slopes weren't good because they scraped through to the frozen layer. Turns on lower angle slopes were great cruisers. The underlying refrozen snow didn't hold a boot, but we never broke through while skiing. The new snow fell as good snow and has only gotten better since. Fairly large surface hoar everywhere, overlying a very dry mix of snow crystals and grauple. Sparkly, silky, cohesionless, and fast.
We parked at Hyak, fishscaled up the Cold Creek road, then skied through forest to Twin Lakes. Abandoned idea of turns in forest to the SW and skinned NW up through sunny forest to the Windy Pass area. We stayed close to the end of the NE arm of Silver Peak and climbed up into Silver Peak bowl on its east side and then to the 5200 foot knob near the top of the bowl. We started back down the way we had come up, but the difficult visibility in the shade of the cliffs and scraping though on the steeper slopes made us reevaluate. Changed plans to skiing down just inside the NW arm, not as steep and better lighting. Very enjoyable cruising turns on the moderate slopes. Turned E a ways down and skied the top edge of the big clearcut - more silky cruising to Windy Pass. Up to Nordic Pass, then traversed under Radio Ridge (turns would have been bad) to get to Rockdale viewpoint and XC trail. The north facing slope from the viewpoint looked so nice that we had to try it - just as great as everything else (rare)! Skied up to Grand Junction and then along XC trail to Hyak, and took a "blue" run down to the bottom - excellent.
Charles |
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