Twin Lakes / Zipper Couloir and Silver Peak
Welp, after writing 5 paragraphs and then accidentally pressing "cancel" when I wanted to change my photo upload, my TR got wiped so this second attempt will be shorter... Attempted the Zipper last night with a buddy. The short of it was we stayed on Cold Creek Trail too long (west) before we started climbing. I thought we were in couloir drainage but didn't respect the dogleg nature of the couloir and apron below it that demanded an earlier rise. We got cliffed out pretty badly, and decided to bail after a couple too many class 5 moves for my liking. Again, in retrospect, I believe we started climbing too late and should have started trending up towards the snow apron (below and looker's left of couloir proper). Map and research beta didn't match the reality, oh well.
To salvage the night, we decided to give Silver a go, and it was great! You can drive all the way past the summer TH. We carried briefly up the spur road off 9070 that curves around north / northwest from 9070 past the summer TH until we hit continuous snow. After a quick carry through the forest, you gain the basin pretty quickly and then have a bevy of options. We opted for the nw shoulder, as did many others, and took in glorious views from atop the ridge (overlooking Lake Annette and Rainer, as well as the I90 corridor and Snoqualmie range back over our right shoulder / looking north). Coverage and conditions were solid in the basin. We stayed skier's right of our uphill, which was advisable, and after a quick forest carry traverse for this splitboarder, made it back to spur road pretty easily. After some fun road skiing / riding, and a couple quick carries, we were back at our car at sunset for beers.
All in all, a fun evening and adventure in the mountains. Met a guy named Evan atop Silver who had done the Zipper two weeks prior. He confirmed our mistake and explained you need to climb, trending right, immediately after crossing the creek outlet from the lakes. As I said, we stayed on trail way too long. I'm wondering if any others have had the same experience. I think next year, I'll aim for mid-May. Good to have a learning experience, and learn how to bail when you get into bad spots. If anything, we should have bailed earlier.
Zipper from 9070
I thought maybe 6 feet wide at the lower / narrow crux?! I'll never know, haha. The apron is below and to left, out of frame. We were trying to approach from directly below the line, a mistake. The dogleg in the line is real, and doesn't appear that way from googlemaps terrain view / my research. Live and learn.
Silver north basin from nw ridge
Beauty views and a great night. Coverage is still really good for June (!?). So lucky we can ski in daylight at 9pm an hour from Seattle...
Views sw from Silver nw ridge
Looked pretty bare down to Annette. Possibly some chutes still go from the summit down, but I wouldn't know... the popular nw shoulder was looking bare as well.
Man, I wouldn't have expected anyone going after the Zipper this late, but you never know unless you go, plus I've never done it so who am I to say ... kudos for trying!!
Good on you to salvage the day with Silver - it's been skiing great this spring, for sure, though the Annette Lake side seems to be going quick now, and will prob continue to do so with the upcoming rain. I'm thinking there will be turns to be had on Summer Solstice so hoping to see many friends up there.
I've tried that couloir in late season conditions like this, and had a bad time. A big chunk of snowpack (like 40' long) collapsed in one of the constrictions when we stepped on it. If it'd been steeper, it could have been a full-depth glide avalanche. I'm more cautious about melted out features with water running under them now.
As of yesterday the run towards Annette is still worthy, although some rocks are poking out and it's pretty thin.
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