This was a Cascade Backcountry tour, and a beacon/travel education day for a couple of friends who are new to touring.
The very ambitious (and never really serious) plan was to head out the XC trails from Hyak and scoot out to Twin Lakes, then up to ski the east slopes of Silver. Coverage along the XC trails is pretty good, with only a few bare patches, but even at 3400 feet there's only 18" of snow on the ground, if that.
Since both Jessica and Leigh were working on new boots, we made it a travel day and skinned up to just shy of Windy Pass and did a nice big beacon search clinic. Great fun, and everyone did a great job. It's a treat to go out and have a blast with enthusiastic people when, if it were just me, I'd probably stay home and eat pancakes, waiting for better snow.
Occasional sun and great visibility was a bonus. Surface hoar forming everywhere, with particularly impressive formations in the creeks and riverbeds. Had we dug a pit, I'll bet we would have found some near the ground, but we were occupied with beacon work.
Sounds like a good start to the season, Marco. I just took at look at the Cascade SP site. Lots of good training photos in there. Good to see you back on Pantengliopolis.
ReplyDeleteIt's been a pretty dry couple of months for interesting things! Though, really, there's been plenty going on, but I haven't been driven enough to post about it...
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