June 5, 2010, We(s)t siders Birthday Tour

Our esteemed webmaster invited seven of us to join him in celebrating his birthday at Silver Peak today.  We were able to drive within a couple hundred yards of Windy Pass and skin continuous snow from there, four skiers were ahead of us, and half a dozen followed our group.  The rain this week has done a good job of consolidating the snow, so before noon we had good corn; later we found an inch or two of slush atop the firm snow and descending became more grabby.  The usual early June Mountaineers snow skills weekend had about 20 attendees camping on the knoll in the north basin.   On the slopes the sun was hot, and there was a nice breeze on the ridgecrest.