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Is there still powder out there?


Why yes my neophyte...

A friend on mine heard confirmation from a source, who'd been out during the week, that the goods still remained. The weekend prior I slept in and missed Squirrel99's adventure, even though I found one of my own. The pictures from his Red Mountain trip haunted me all week so when I the opportunity arose again I didn't have to think twice.

It's no secret with all the books, guides, trip reports that the Snoqualmie bc is refuge to some of the gnarliest lines I would soon witness. What I was dying to know was how hard I was gonna have to work for these turns.

All seven of us Squirrel99, Lani, Cascadefreeheeler, Bjorn, Teague, and JP departed from the Summit West parking lot by 8am ish. The skies sported their typical shades of gray with intermitent spurts of frozen stuff falling from the sky. The paved skin track was nice though firm in a few places. About 20 minutes after starting Lani and Cascadefreeheeler broke ahead to embark on their own journey.


Pillow line...

The skin up through the forest was mellow until we arrived at the base of some cliffbands and started switchbacking up some steep tree'd slopes. Skin track was icy, especially near switchbacks, where all the snow had been scrapped off. Trees and branches came in handy a number of times. Definitely conditions when having lots of surface area can be frustrating.


Skinning...(photo by Squirrel99)

After this section we skinned through some glades before reaching a logging road, which soon gave way to more trees. Then we followed a ridge line before traversing below more cliffbands. Just when I thought my legs were falling off we arrived at our destination.


Looking down...


Looking at our objective on a clear day...(hijacked from Squirrel99)

Now for the meat and potatoes...


JP...(photo by Squirrel99)


Squirrel99...


The slut...


Squirrel99...(photo by JP)


Teague...


Snoslut...(photo by either Squirrel99 or JP)


Bjorn...

Teague and Bjorn took one chute while JP, Squirrell99 and myself took the one over. The chute that T and B dropped appeared to already have a previous crown. JP ski cut ours and produced nothing but a little sluff that was minor enough to turn into. Down below old debris was scattered about.

Now how do we get outta here? We could either boot back up what we just came down and retrace our ascent or exit via Gold Creek. Even after Squirrel99's warning we decided on the latter. What an adventure. There were more creek crossing then gray days in the PNW.


Any which way but wet...(photo by Squirrel99)


One of many...(photo by Squirrel99)


Another creek crossing...(photo by Squirrel99)


Sometimes bridges would only be good for the first 4 people so the fifth was often times left to fend on his own...(photo by Squirrel99)


Bear paw...(photo by Squirrel99)


Finally back to the road. Now we have to hitch-hike back to our cars at West...

Stick a fork in me cause I'm done! That's what I thought until the next day, arriving in Silver Basin at Crystal for a steep line down a windload north facing ridge.




Checkout this one piece...

Fuck yeah! Nice TR!!!

That looked like fun.

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holy shiznit. those pictures are beautiful!

Looks like an awesome line! (especially the one through the creek)

Great adventure and stoke!

Here's to the "not ready yet" line...when its ready.

Nice stuff for sure. Thanks for that!

Nice POw POw , I hope my weekend looks like that