Skyline Ridge/Heather Lake

Yesterday Nick and Meagan, in from upstate New York, and Mike, a grad school buddy of Nicks, and I went up to ski. Pouring rain turned to puking snow, lots of it. The approach to Steven's Pass saw one car turned over and the roads Mike said were a wee slick. We stayed in the car to don boots and avy gear. (avy danger was considerable, and we were going to stick to anchored slopes). We started skinning up the road that Lara and I had done a few weeks ago. The snow on the uptracks was light and silky. This was going to be a good day. In fact, by the time we decended our skin tracks were nearly filled in.

We continued to the prominent flat spot, heading climbers left to the lake. We gained the ridge and dropped in to the shelter of a large tree well on the other side for lunch. There were a few other parties we saw prior, but from lunch on we were on our own. Snow absorbs sounds and the stillness is marvelous. We dropped in around a rock cliff to a lower face that offered some great lines between the trees. I followed Nick for a bit of my best grooving all day. Then I took a fall that required Meg's assistance to dig out from. Ugh. Lots of snow. We skinned back to the ridge, at some point I took lead breaking trail. Not an easy task. I took to snacking on the snow that piled up on the shorter trees. Nick rejoined us after some skin trouble with Meg's skis and he took command of breaking trail. He lead us toward the boulder field to scope the lines there. The women opted out, the men found a line to begin from more than half way up our skin track. I continued to break trail back to the crest. Snow sheared in some places when laying in the track.

Back on the South face, Meg and I were eager for turns. We tore skins off a bit prematurely and skied a few solid turns down a lovely slope that as I turned skiers left poped me in front of a drainage to far west of where we needed to be. So in dropping temps, we put back on our skins to climb a bit to the road. Then, skins off again, we skied down. From the Verizon tower, the boys caught us and joined us on the south face. Snow was inconsistent here, wind blown and a bit crusty. We descended just before dark to the car full of snow.

Great day,
go get some!