Lanham Lake

April 4, 2010

Winter returned to the Cascades with a vengeance during early April, with about 6-7 feet of new snow falling at low temps.  It was fun to be out during stormy weather and ride deep powder in empty old growth.  

On April 4, Chris and I rode W/NW forested slopes above Lanham Lake, east of Stevens Pass, where the snow was protected, very deep, and nice and light (especially for April).  Lots of face shots.

Getting up this thing was a b*tch since the terrain was pretty steep and tight, making skinning switchback-intensive and progress painfully slow.  I was feeling defeated, but Chris persevered and broke trail to the top of the ridge, and I followed.

The ride down was pretty sweet in some of the deepest snow of the year in fun, challenging terrain.  The snow definitely wanted to sluff off of the steeper pitches, adding a little bit of excitement in the tight spots.  A short-ish but great day, since neither of us were down for another round of up.  We chose to blame that on being tired from previous days efforts as opposed to being lazy.

Lanham Lake, 4.3.10 from Preston Few on Vimeo.