Over the Memorial Day Weekend, Tom Janisch took out two different backcountry ski tours in the Washington Pass area for the benefit of those who attended our backcountry skiing classroom sessions in early winter. Participating in the outings were Tom, Patti, and Julie Janisch; Phil and Katherine Safar; Martin Straub; Gary Cassel; Chester Marler; and Coron Polley.
Tom’s quick recap of the weekend is as follows:
Tom Janisch enjoying turns through butter corn snow.
“The ski tours were a success and we had excellent ski conditions. The Saturday Birthday Tour with the variation over CopperPass and back over Kangaroo Pass offers more good skiing, is straightforward, and has neat views of the Kangaroo Peaks.
From the col below Blue Peak, I could see that the upper slopes of Golden Horn (the intended destination for Sunday’s tour) were wind scoured. Furthermore, after Saturday’s tour we drove to Swamp Creek and there was no snow at the start elevation. Saturday evening we had dinner at the Duck Brand in Winthrop and we ran into Gordy Skoog. He offered local knowledge that the slopes below Maple Pass to the west and south would probably offer nice, smooth corn snow. We followed his recommendations and he was right.
We all made it back home with big smiles! “
WenatcheeOutdoors is now running our event series (classes and outings) under the banner of the Subaru Outdoor Series and Cascade Subaru is helping us defray the cost of offering more outdoor classes and events. It’s a logical partnership — once you start paying attention to it, it’s pretty staggering how many of our local outdoor enthusiasts use Subarus to get to and from the mountains.
Patti and Julie Janisch and Katerine Safar at the start of Saturday’s tour.
Coron Polley and Martin Straub with the Early Winter spires behind.
Does this look like a posed REI catalog shot or what?
Here’s a selection of other photos from the weekend.
Tom leading the crew skyward.
Below — more people, more mountains ( a good caption for editors who are getting weary of doing photo captions).
This post was originally published on 6/6/12.
Beautiful people in beautiful mountains.
Julie demonstrating her racing background.
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