Feb 12, 2005, MRNP - Pan Pt area

After finding snow well preserved from yesterdays hike out of the Nisqually basin I decided it was worth another visit.  Met up with Chris and Rene and pulled into the lot around 9:30am.  It was snowing and blowing when we started skinning.  Not too long after the death fog rolled in.  We got to our drop in and took a peek into the basin.  Was really white.  There was discussion of what to do which soon led to let's dig a shelter.  Not long after our homebase was built a gang of snowshoers, followed by skiers and boarders showed up.  Their effort at an attempt to follow the traditional summer traverse route up Pan Pt got smiles from all around.  One by one they snowshoed, skinned, slid and clawed there way back down.  The new snow was just sliding off the firm crust.  Well after a good half hour or so the majority turned around.  A few kept trying and eventually made it easily when they decided to take off their snowshoes and kick steps in. ;D

After waiting for a chance of visibility we decided we weren't gonna get any.  One by one we dropped in and leep frogged each other for visibility.  Snow on the north aspect was excellent.  Nice windblown pow just like the day before but minus all the evidence of wind effect and crust.  Depth varied from 6" to knee deep.  It wasn't a long run by any means.  Just a meager 300ft or so that was milked along with a few face shots.  We booted out and retreated to our wind breaker.  After some snacks we decided to take one more and go.  The visibility on the ride was not as bad this time.  Our tracks from the first run were there to follow kinda.  On the hike out wind was blowing hard enough to fill our boot tracks in some sections.

The storm was just getting worse so Chris, Rene and I split.  The weather really socked in and visibility was around 50ft.  Once we got near some trees it got all better.  Back at the cars it was all smiles as we laughed at the day gone by and tossed around ideas for tomorrow.  Baker it will be!