November 26, 2005, Silver Saddle

My friends Mark and Bryan and I met at the Renton park & ride this morning and headed for Crystal Mountain.  We were tempted by Paradise, but decided not to risk a long wait at the Longmire gate.  NWAC telemetry reported 4" of new snow at Crystal this morning.  We hoped it would be enough to cover the crust.

We skinned up to Silver Basin, where we passed three other skiers who climbed only to timberline then headed out.  No one else was in the basin during our first two runs from Silver Saddle.  Around noon a couple other skiers arrived to share the slopes with us.  

We found 8-12" of new snow, enough to cushion the base, but not enough to give us a lot of avalanche worries.  Around 1 p.m.  a couple of ski patrollers passed on their control route to Threeway Peak.  They got a couple of slides to run in the steeper gully north of us (called "Boxcar" I think). Slope angle was the key to avalanche potential today.

After blasting the gully next to Threeway Peak (with little results) they skied down and radioed in their report.  Around 2 p.m.  the south backcountry was opened and the lift skiing hordes began to appear.  They generally skied north of us, down the bony chutes on the southeast flank of Silver King.

The picture of Mark above makes it look a bit deeper than it was, but we all enjoyed a fine day.  Days like this really make me glad that the Silver King chairlift was not approved by the Forest Service.  I felt like everybody got something out of the day, both the lift skiers and us pine cone eaters.