[Randy]

Another great weekend on the skis. It may not seem like winter in Seattle, but it still does around the passes. Both Sunday and Monday yielded low visibility, but more importantly good stashes skiable snow. Kendall Peak Vicinity -- 2/15/09 Pico, Jim, Jake, John, Don, Erik, and myself left the Summit West lot a little before 9 AM. We skinned up through Commonwealth Basin on the wide multi-use trails making good time to where we could turn right to ski terrain. We skinned a couple grand to our desired runs, but found more wind crust than we wanted. So, we opted for a shorter day and skied back the way we had come. No complaints though, we found some really good snow on the way out with plenty of soft turns to be had. Unfortunately, I'm not all that great about photographing ski trips. When it gets time to ski, it's hard for me to interrupt turns and capture what would be the better shots. Anyhow, here are a few:

Heading Up

Adding Crampons

Jim Out in Front

The Group Near the Top

Booting Along the Ridge

Kendall Ridge

John

Don, ~ A Third of the Way Down

The Group

Sky, Tye, and Martin Peaks -- 2/16/09 A pretty sweet tour north of Stevens Pass. Today it was Jake, Don, John and myself. We looped it up by leaving a car at the Yodelin lot and one up at the pass where we started. We skinned for a bit up an access road, around Skyline Lake then up to the ridge crest just below a couple steeper steps that we booted.

Booting Along the Ridge to Sky Peak

Ridge Step

From this high point we briefly traversed the south side of the ridge on foot before putting skis back on. The rest of the way to the top of Sky Peak (Point 5482') was easy on skis up the south ridge. After a brief stay on the summit, we had a nice 700' run off to the NE, this appears to a fairly popular area for the B/C folks.

Jake and Don

Sky Peak Descent

From the end of the run we skinned to the saddle between Sky and Tye. The summit of Tye was a relatively quick skin from the saddle although I elected to punt (boot) around a steeper ice section.

Tye Summit

Our run off the summit of Tye was my fav for the day. A 1200' drop in deep powder (at least by this year's standards).

John Skiing Tye

Enjoying the Powder

Looking back up the Tye Run

Looking Down the Tye Run

Point 5645' (aka Spinnaker, aka Martin) required 1400' of gain and just over a mile of skinning. We were looking for some specific runs off the summit, but to our dismay found them rutted out with snowmobile tracks. Damn! But whatever, we still ended up having a great run off the top through more deep snow in terrain the sno-mos were't able to access. For some reason I didn't really yank the camera on the descent. Ack!

Jake Skinning Martin Ridge

Martin Summit

On the Martin Desscent

The route out followed Nason Creek and I was appreciative of John's efforts to give my fixed-heel arse a nice line to follow with out having to free the heels. We ended up skinning a bit at the end, but for the most part it was a good cruise all the way out.

Crossing Nason Creek on the Way Out

Great weekend.

[Tazz]

AWESOME! wasn't the snow great? Looks like a blast!

[Layback]

Bummer it was so grey, but it looks like you had great snow!

[Justus S.]

I was wondering who the crazy skiers were? Looks like it was you guys....

Hmm....

[Randy]

Justus, what were you up to? The other guys evidently saw you, but I didn't. That's me walking along the ridge in your picture.

[Justus S.]

I was stalking you. No, I took a friend and my brother on a snowshoe up to Tye. Man, there was some deep pow up there. It looked like some good skiing was to be had.

[DIYSteve]

Thanks for sharing, Randy. I'm looking forward to joining you and Don for some ski tours. Wow, you guys are using some very advanced techniques in these pics:

[John Morrow]

[Randy]

Sorry dudes, now I feel bad about posting those shots especially since I had the worst crash of the day by far. In Don's defense, he was skiing with one contact lens as one had just popped out.

[GeoTom]

I did Sky as a snowshoe a couple weeks ago. Tye looked too far on my shortened timeframe (late start and evening obligations). And I'm slow anyway. Now that I got my touring boots I might have to head back there soon so I can have some spectacular crashes as well.

[DIYSteve]

[John Morrow]

[don b]

Hey, Whose to say I didn't pull it out Bode Miller style?

[DIYSteve]

[Schmidt Alti-Dude]

Inspiring as always. Another area to add to our growing list. I may have to take up skiing one day.