Current conditions for the Enigma Gully/Snoqualmie

[robertm]

Was up around Alpental last night. No consolidation... lots of wading through deep powder. I can't imagine that the gulley would be in. Great backcountry riding though.

[Mike]

Anybody been up to the Enigma Gully lately? Current conditions? Would anybody care to wildly speculate? I was hoping that the snowpack has consolidated and refrozen in the last week so that we can step-kick our way up this Saturday.

Thanks for any replies - useful or entertaining.

-Mike

[philfort]

I was up at the top of Enigma Gully yesterday. We didn't ski it due to the lateness of the day, and questionable snow stability (there has been a lot of wind up there, and the top section is the perfect aspect for windloading, although we didn't test it). The upper west slope of Snoqualmie was hammered by wind, and the skiing wasn't that great. Below 5200ft in the open it was excellent. In the forest, it was icy. Not enough new snow on top of last wknd's ice crust (which is completely bulletproof) there.

The rocks around NY gully (from what we could see) seemed to have some verglas on them, and there were some short bits of thick water ice near the summit rocks on the west side. I wonder if Chair peak is coming in.

Near the summit, there was about 1.5 to 2 feet of somewhat compacted snow on last weekends crust. You'd still be post-holing pretty deep without skis (but probably not wallowing, unless the new snow is a lot deeper due to windloading). There appeared to be a weak layer near the crust.

[ 12-21-2001: Message edited by: philfort ]