Washington Pass

Missed opening day as I was up watching the snow melt up at Blackcomb. Showed up Saturday in the North Cascades, and had a fine (if unusual) day for the 20th of May.

The day was good because I got to spend it with Avajane (my daughter) and Ed Rundel, and we spent it working hard to ski what we could. N and NE/NW slopes around the Pass still have skiable snow, and though it was warm and stormed around Midnight for an hour or more, there was a refreeze that made it a day. The low Forests had shallow snow, but were skinable. The Avychute approaches were mostly skiable, but there were large, deep moat’s around most trees, leaving less room to skin or ski. This made the skiing more difficult and increased the danger of a fall into one of those tree pits. South facing slopes and ridgelines were bare in spots. In the bowls, the snow was very shallow. While skining up, Ava post holed a whole ski to the rocks below. I was right behind her to help her get out of the “crevasse”. We toured up to 6800’ or so and the lightly suncupped snow skied “Ok”…It wasn’t sticky or sloppy. We saw a fairly new 5-6’ crown in very steep terrain at about 6,400’, so though everything seems consolidated, there could still be a nad layer down low. Start as close to dawn as you can, and have fun out there. Not a great time to take new riders up there.