Pow day at Loup Loup

Valley to Sun

Warming up the hip flexors

Track setting

Slushy surf and grind

Very early start trying to beat the change over to rain. Warmer than anticipated when we arrived, but it also stayed cooler long than we thought it would. Not quite Cascade concrete, but fairly dense and kind of a junk show in the forest. Snow quality was worse than we were expecting, but not terrible and stayed cool for several hours under overcast skies with light snow and a gentle breeze. Open terrain skied much better, but there was also evidence of recent natural avalanche activity, seemingly related to wind slabs releasing from the Castle Crest cliff bands (with visible crowns) that then triggered some additional storm slabs further down the slopes. Surface snow felt very consolidated and stable as we toured around and looked for additional signs of stability/instability and better snow. Ended up skiing a couple laps in the chutes/main path zone and that skiing (snow quality) was much better than in the Wildflower zone and we experienced no signs of instability as we ascended and descended in either zone. It was hard to ignore the avy debris and visible crowns along the Castle Crest. We took our time, tread carefully and methodically poked, prodded and stomped on the snowpack. All signs seemed to say the pack had set up and solidified, but we weren't going to go poking dragons, stayed out of the highest terrain where unreleased windslabs might still be reactive and chose our ski lines accordingly. It was snowing as we skied off towards the car. By the time we reached the vehicle it was raining. It was raining pretty hard as we drove past the park boundary. Oh, and we saw a pine marten and met a cool tele skier from the west side. Good day. 

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David Scott

Maritime meh

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Pow day at Loup Loup

Valley to Sun

Warming up the hip flexors

Track setting

Slushy surf and grind

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