[Jim Dockery]

After my recon last week to asses the damage to the lookout I felt compelled to return and fix the door latch so that hopefully the door can be secured against the elements this winter (if users take the time to close & latch it!). I enlisted my friend John, who is another Pilchuck regular (he can see people at the lookout with a telescope from his house on Burn Rd.). A call to the FS ensured that they wouldn't lock the gate until later in the week after we were done. I parked at the same spot, about half way up the road, although I likely could have driven my Subaru further, but decided it wasn't worth it. We were surprised at the depth and quality of the new snow that enabled good skinning right from the car, and let us zoom down at the end of the day. Broken clouds kept the temps down, so the snow stayed nice and cold all day and we started thinking we might find some good skiing. When first contemplating this mission we thought it would be more work than play, but in the end it turned out to be a wonderful day in a winter wonderland of snow covered trees and sparkling powder.

Three Fingers from the trailhead

Once we got above the forest I was so taken with the gorgeous light and views that I had to keep stopping to take pictures. A side benefit of this was that John broke trail all the way to the lookout , although I partially paid him back when I bootpacked up the steep slopes back up onto Larrison Ridge after we skied The Gunsight.

John leads the way

NE

Glacier Pk.

West from saddle

We spent about an hour in the hut eating lunch (again I owed John for half his excellent sandwich since my feedbag inadvertently got left under stuff in the trunk of my car) and repairing the door. We reattached the bottom hinge and reconstructed the latch set-up.

hinge work

New latch set-up

Larrison ridge lookin' good!

John got first tracks down The Gunsight in wonderful calf-deep powder over a perfect base. He said it might have been his best Gunsight run ever, and he's done a few. Everything looked well bonded with little avy danger.

Gunsight Powder

I plowed a bootpack up knee to thigh deep snow to the crest of Larrison Ridge. I was sad to see we lost the beautiful light that had been illuminating it when we were at the hut, but it was still a special treat to swoop down making first (and only) tracks in the pristine powder.

Skiing Larrison Ridge

Skiing Larrison Ridge

Skiing Larrison Ridge

powder paradise

cresting a rollover

Traverse to The Onion Peel cliff

As we climbed back out of the gully I again left John the task of breaking trail as I marveled at the light on Liberty mountain, then looking back out over the sound.

Liberty Mt.

Afternoon light

Every bit of the ski down was easy cruising in the soft forgiving snow. The next thing we knew we were back on the road cruising down.

Road Ski

About a mile from the trailhead we came upon a young man and two young women who were trying out their new Subaru in the snow. They got stuck trying to turn around and were attempting to dig out with barehands (dressed in street clothes and shoes). We got out our shovels then pushed them back into the track where they could carefully back up to a better turn around. I'm not sure they would have gotten out on their own and would have been looking at quite an adventure walking many miles back down the snow covered road in the dark to the Mt. Loop Highway The Mountain Gods smiled on us today - what started as a bit of civic duty turned into a great day of views and fantastic skiing.

[Randito]

Good stewardship! Nice looking skiing

[Matt]

[olderthanIusedtobe]

Ditto on the thanks for your stewardship. Great photos, looks like a wonderful day up there. I hadn't seen the name Larrison Ridge before, but I've certainly gazed at it many times. There's cool terrain around Pilchuck.

[I'm Pysht]

Nice piece of wood you used there.

[NorDub]

Wow, those are incredible photos. Great lighting!

[MattP.]

Gorgeous photos! And thanks for the repair work!

[GaliWalker]

The first three photos are my favorites. Such beautifully soft light, and so nicely captured.

[Rigafari]

Nice pics

[Kenji]

Another thank you for your repair work. Nice pics, love the last one:

[AlpineRose]

Good karma there. One good turn deserves another, eh? Sigh, I wish there were more places where roads could be skied in the conditions you experienced. Without getting chewed up and ground up by various other forms of transport. I'd almost forgotten how skiing like that has its own lovely, mellow pleasures. You caught it just right.

[SergioNapelo]

Thank you!

[iron]

[Jim Dockery]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I find it interesting how many people like the road skiing shot (as do I). John thought it was funny that I wanted to stop that last time to snap him gliding down into the sunset. I agree with AlpineRose that skiing down a road like this (in good conditions) is great fun - like riding a magic carpet. When we hit the car I told John I'd feel sorry for snowshoers who had to slog down all that way, but he wisely said that they would be happy too after a nice day on the mountain, and we all enjoy our varied winter recreations in different ways.

[iron]