Beautiful, fun, and a little scary. The avalanche report warned of wet loose avy danger increasing over the weekend so we hoped that the ridge would be blown free of snow. It wasn't, but it was cool and stable enough to get up and down. On the way down it warmed up to the point where we were kicking off snow pinwheels like crazy. My wife made one that grew to the size of a truck tire before disintegrating. In many places the snow was on top of a solid ice layer. I wouldn't recommend this hike this weekend when the weather is warming significantly.
Now on to the fun part of the trip report.We took the snowshoe route straight up hill. The snow in the trees was usually solid enough to hold our weight without postholing too much. postholing increased as we went up through the trees. We had never been up this route and were lucky enough to follow the footsteps of a single hiker who knew the route. If it hadn't been for her tracks our routefinding would have been much tougher.
When we broke out of the trees is when the avy danger started occuring. The half mile or so of distance to the ridge top was covered by up to a foot of fresh snow that was just on the leeward (bad) side. The only tracks ahead of us were from the one earlier hiker, so the hillside felt pristine and beautiful. Once on the ridge we traversed the rocks to the windward side of the ridge. In the rocky area we postholed up to our thigh in a couple of places. On the windward side of the ridge the avy danger dropped dramatically but we were wishing we had crampons and ice axes. The hiker ahead of us had both. The snow dropped to 2-4 inches on top of an ice layer and on some steep spots we weren't able to kick in steps.
The trees and lookout at the top were all encrusted with windblown snow and quite beautiful. We never caught up with the earlier hiker as she continued right over the top and descended some other way.
The descent was rather easy except on the windward side. The snow varied from easy plungestepping to hardpack quickly and with little warning. Descending on the lee side of the ridge was worrisome as the snow had softened quite a bit and we were kicking off the large pinwheels I described earlier. Unfortunately the slope is no where near as pristine as when we found it. Sorry.
After reaching the happy security of the trees we had lunch and ran into two separate individuals that had snowboards and skis and were on the way up.
Overall, it was three hours up and a couple down. Very beautiful. A nice day to spend with my wife.
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