A friend is hiking the PCT this summer and she needed an intoduction to snow travel and ice axe arrest. Three of us started at the former Mountaineers Lodge near exit 53 off of I90. The area where there used to be a rope tow was sufficiently steep to practice snow travel but not so steep as to intimidate. This was one of the few times where I have done adequate advance research and it seemed like a logical extension of the trip to crest the ridge and descend down to Lodge Lake. People were skiing and boarding along the groomed ridge line. I think we were among the very few who did not have to pay $50 or more to cross that ridge line. There was about 400' of descent down to Lodge Lake. We found evidence of other foot and ski travellers and we thought we occasionally heard voices in the trees - perhaps we were just hallucinating. It did seem as though we had the nice lake area to ourselves for lunch and the sun even came out.