Silver Peak

[Jim]

Siver Peak basin had decent snow, and lots of it compared to January, to my surprise. We made fresh turns before passing some folks coming up from the basin bottom, a couple of groups and one with a very happy dog. One group caught up with us in the forest beyond Nordic Pass as we all struggled with the hard crust. Seems like there is some spring turns to be made yet.

[Dave_Schuldt]

So how do you get in there? Up the road from Hyak, or is there a faster way?

[Jim]

I've always left from the bottom of the Silver Fir chair, skin up the ski run to the base of the black diamond run, then left on the cattrail to Grand Junction. From there it's west then northeast on a logging road until you hit the blue diamond-marked trail thru remnant old growth to Nordic Pass, then straight up the clearcut, thru a band of trees and into the lower basin. The trick is to pick the logging road that gets you the highest and avoiding some of the lower blue trail thrashing on crust. We missed our turnoff on the way down and paid with what only slighly resembled skiing before finding the next road.

 

We went to the upper basin and skied down. If you have two cars you can leave one at the Annette Lake trailhead, ski up the basin and down the west slope, which is a great 1,500 ft or so of a very even pitch. Then ski out via Annette Lake trail.

[Dave_Schuldt]

Next time park at the old Hyak ski area go up hill and take a road to your left. This decends slightly then climbs up to Windy Pass, turn left up the clear cut. This will be faster than Nordic Pass.

[Jim]

Thanks. Maybe that will save me wandering around the forest like last time. That blue trail is grim towards the bottom. At least with frozen crust. Next weekend maybe Vesper Peak, weather dependent, which has zero thrash factor. Just the stream crossing.