April 30, 2002, Snoqualmie Pass

Mike and I climbed through old-growth forest and then up an average 35 degree SW-facing open slope to about 5300'. A warm sunny day. The forest snow was first crunchy and dirty, progressing as we climbed to smooth and clean in openings, with up to 6" of loose large-grained surface snow. On the open slope, the snow appeared to have frozen overnight, but not deeply, so with our late start we were kicking steps in 6-8" of the loose large-grained snow, which was underlain by a fairly strong large-granular layer. In places a boot or pole would penetrate this layer and sink into another 6-8" of loose large-grained snow. The ski back down was very good, and much better than we anticipated, as the strong layer held up and the surface snow did not act as deep or slow as we expected. The snow appeared quite stable, with just a few large pin-wheels and a few very shallow (less than 2") slow-moving snow snakes. We were able to ski back down through the woods to about 3000'.

Photos from this trip can be viewed here.

Charles