November 12, 2005, Summit Central and beyond
11/12/05
WA Snoqualmie Pass
1988
0
Hiked up and over to the back side. Coverage was adequate all the way to the road. Lots of people were out. I went partway down the Rockdale canyon road/trail. The portions of the XC trail/road system I traversed were 99%+ covered and good, if a bit heavy, skiing. Glide wax would have helped. A great start to the season.
Longer report added 11/17:
I did end up going. I took metal edge fish scale skis. Going up from summit central parking lot was fine, coverage was complete and there was a skin track. I had no wax on the skis and they attracted giant clumps of snow underneath so I probably didn't really need the skin track but it saved effort. I dropped back to grand junction and coverage was 99% from summit to grand junction on the road, and i did the little detour to a little high point above grand junction also. Up there, a few people with AT or real tele stuff were descending in the "glade" off the high point, but coverage was marginal for that activity. From grand junction, i went down the road towards rockdale canyon as if you were going to the road the whole way to Ollalie. Coverage was 100% to the low point on the road, but my skis were so sticky i got almost no glide action. Then I trudged back up. Based on what i saw, i do not think nordic pass would be very good, either the spotty part getting going off the XC loops, or the stream crossing or the downhill part at the end descending from the weather station to windy pass. Just not deep enough. I did ski down from the top of the quad down to the summit central parking lot, and it was tolerably decent even on those skis in places. I think if were to go back i would take waxed up skinny skis and hope it wasn't too icy, who knows what the snow is like now.
[Edit: I have moved this from the "lift-accessed" board to the "November backcountry" board because the lifts were not yet running and I think there is some useful bc info here --Charles]
Longer report added 11/17:
I did end up going. I took metal edge fish scale skis. Going up from summit central parking lot was fine, coverage was complete and there was a skin track. I had no wax on the skis and they attracted giant clumps of snow underneath so I probably didn't really need the skin track but it saved effort. I dropped back to grand junction and coverage was 99% from summit to grand junction on the road, and i did the little detour to a little high point above grand junction also. Up there, a few people with AT or real tele stuff were descending in the "glade" off the high point, but coverage was marginal for that activity. From grand junction, i went down the road towards rockdale canyon as if you were going to the road the whole way to Ollalie. Coverage was 100% to the low point on the road, but my skis were so sticky i got almost no glide action. Then I trudged back up. Based on what i saw, i do not think nordic pass would be very good, either the spotty part getting going off the XC loops, or the stream crossing or the downhill part at the end descending from the weather station to windy pass. Just not deep enough. I did ski down from the top of the quad down to the summit central parking lot, and it was tolerably decent even on those skis in places. I think if were to go back i would take waxed up skinny skis and hope it wasn't too icy, who knows what the snow is like now.
[Edit: I have moved this from the "lift-accessed" board to the "November backcountry" board because the lifts were not yet running and I think there is some useful bc info here --Charles]
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