June 3, 2001, Silver Peak, Snoqualmie Pass

Thanks to earlier reports from Charles Wiley and Brent Hostetler it was evident that this normal, old favorite, mid to late June tour should be consumed now, while the goods were still on the table. Found a dusting of fresh snow on the road and a major drift that appeared impassable on the road at the edge of the clear cut at Olallie Meadows (3800). Packed up and shouldered our skis for what we anticipated as a short carry to skinable snow. After about a quarter of a mile of snow dusted dirt road the impassable drift started seeming more passable, so we dropped our loads and went back for the car. After a half a dozen or so (vehicle) runs into the snowbank we busted through and made it up to about 4000 before we got to one that was really impractical to fight. This time loading up for real, we headed up the road to our normal 4200 road end which begins our favored north to south circuit through the Silver Peak bowl. With 3 inches of new and increasing thickness of older snow on the road as we proceeded, we unloaded and started skinning about half way to the upper parking area. Barely managed, without desking, to skin from the upper parking through the woods around the ridge to the base of the northside bowl where there was good snow coverage. In fact it was so nice that we stopped for a yoyo run from the roll about half way up. By the time we got to the saddle for lunch we were €œon instruments€ in steady snow (in June? What's up with that?) which was fine, because we had already seen the views many times before, and appreciated the fresh snow. Skiing down the southside bowl we saw various large rocks which had never shown themselves in prior years. The big camper sized rock at the mouth of the southside bowl that we usually sit on (if it is even exposed) was so exposed we could not see over it. We triggered several surface sloughs of the new snow in the avi chutes down through the woods on our way back to the clear cut, and saw death cookies big enough to pass for polar bears. But the base beneath held firm despite the warm temps. All the new snow was melted on the road but the prior coverage and drifts afforded us to ski more than 80 % of the way back to the car with a couple of short stone grinds.

ron jarvis