I like this area; it has worthy terrain, it's just the wrong aspect. But it is a really fun ski summit and it is pretty rare to see others up this drainage near Stevens Pass, WA.
On Jan. 16, 2010 Eric, Jason and I toured up to the main summit, while Liz and Chris headed up to the lookers right summit on the other side of the large gully/terrain trap. The sun was out and the sky was clear and the snow was deep, although the bottom couple of hundred feet had a slight crust on top which softened (for the most part) as the day wore on. Trail braking was pleasantly strenuous, although we were a little concerned about stability and the strong sun. It's a pretty wide-open face with lots of convex rollers and a slide has the potential to funnel you into a gnarly terrain trap.
As we were on the summit about to drop in, we watched as Chris stomped around, further down the ridge, checking out the snow on the other side of the south summit. He managed to kick off a pretty significant slab avalanche that kept going and going. Hmmmm.
At this point I started to get a little worried that I might have gotten us into a bit of a pickle since Eric had mentioned a few instances of the snow settling and breaking up while I was setting the switchbacks up the steep headwall. The snow seemed a little sketchy, but nothing we're not used to encountering, and I just kept saying that it felt fine to me. After watching the excitement off in the distance, I felt quite a bit of responsibility to make sure we all got down safely since I basically ignored Eric's gut feeling without really taking the time to assess things particularly thoroughly.
In the end it was fine and we just rode down a little more conservatively than we would have liked to, but better safe than sorry. Chris and Liz managed to find decent turns of their own. Blue skies and fresh snow...I'm definitely not complaining.
A frame grab of the slide that Chris started.
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