Silver Peak, North Bowl, Central WA Cascades, 6/25

It's the end of June, and there is still plenty of fairly easily accessible snow in the PNW.  Chinook and Paradise are still skin-able from the car.  The vast majority of the forest roads are now passable.  The final 3 miles of the road to Artist's Point in the Baker zone will be the last to open on the 29th.  There is still lots of good snow above 5k in the north facing bowls closer to the crest.  It will probably be pretty good on the glaciers until the end of August

We headed up the road to Silver Peak early in the AM with a plan to take a few laps in the North bowl.  According to reports from last weekend, there is still about a thousand vertical feet of fairly smooth, pollen free, continuous snow.  It's a slow go up a rough road about 25 minutes off route 90 through Snoqualmie Pass.  Skiable snow is visible from the car.  This is not always the case for late June touring in this area.



You go from this...


To this...


To this..


To this... in about 30 minutes


We skied 4 different lines on North and East facing slopes  over a 3 hour period.  It ended up being 3600 feet of descending vertical.  Pretty nice for minimal commitment.



Great views of Rainier from the Ridge


Looking East back towards home


Silver Peak Summit


The snow off the glaciers has held up well, but is dwindling fast.


That said, my July turns will probably be made on one of the Volcanoes.

 





 

another very cool report...

Bravo

Sweet!

Thanks Dudes

Planning on skiing Rainier the 2nd week in July.  Let me know if you guys are interested
in an NYSB summer PNW meet-up... I can guide us up to Camp Muir... you'll be on your own from their.

nepa wrote

in an NYSB summer PNW meet-up... I can guide us up to Camp Muir... you'll be on your own from their.

I went up to Muir solo..Just followed the conga line of people.

How were the sun-cups? Was it hard to make a turn on it?

We had talked about doing some summer skiing - though the kids have other ideas.   Keep the post coming on your summer ski trips.

.......and it's about f@&cking time.  I've been watching all the ongoing activity on TAY, waiting to hear SOMETHING from you!

Good stuff.

Skiray wrote

How were the sun-cups? Was it hard to make a turn on it?

We had talked about doing some summer skiing - though the kids have other ideas.   Keep the post coming on your summer ski trips.

about 8 years ago we took the kids to Vancouver in July . We spent a day skiing Whistler. I highly recommend it...

Skiray wrote

How were the sun-cups? Was it hard to make a turn on it?

We had talked about doing some summer skiing - though the kids have other ideas.   Keep the post coming on your summer ski trips.

Sure thing Ray.

Turns were pretty smooth... sun cups haven't been too bad yet.  This past weekend was the first real heat wave for us.  Temps have been below normal all spring.  Heck, there was even some high elevation snow on the volcanoes earlier this month.

and the summer stoke winner is....