Distance: 7.5 mi.

Elevation Gain: 3400 ft.

With the weather having been clear for several days and temps above normal I had kind of assumed all backcountry skiing would be kinda bad.  Rodrigo and I hemmed and hawed on what to do with the day. I was resigned to just do some easy laps on crust at Hyak with some good views and sun, but we got some intel from another friend that north facing slopes near Crystal Mountain were still holding some good snow. Our friend Brian also joined at the last minute and we had a plan!

Since Vanessa was working I didn’t have a car so everyone met at my place at 6:30, we piled in Brian’s car and headed toward Crystal. We arrived before the resort opened but still had to walk a bit to to the lodge where we had to take a quick potty break. We geared up and were finally skinning by about 8:30. The road was nicely groomed until we reached the Bullion Basin Trail.

It was easy skinning up and we made good time to the meadow area in the basin. We followed a skin track to the Northwest toward Platinum Peak thinking we would be able to make a traverse over to the ridge that heads toward Bullion Peak. The skinning was a bit difficult through here, as the existing skin track was from the day before when things were warm and had refrozen overnight.

We ended up trying to make a new track next to it by stomping through the crust. Slightly better. Eventually we got to where we wanted to traverse to the ridge but it was fairly steep and there was some obvious wind loading on steep slopes that we didn’t want to cross. We decided to just continue up to the SE ridge of Platinum in a burn area to decide what to do.

We took a snack break on the ridge and enjoyed the views around 10:30. We eventually decided to just ski down the SW facing slopes that we skinned up to get back into the main basin and go up to Bullion Peak. The skiing here was definitely crusty and somewhat difficult. We eventually did a long traverse to the north where we found some snow that was more shaded by trees and wasn’t terrible.

Back in the basin we decided to follow a skin track that traversed west to gain the NW ridge of Bullion Peak. We could tell immediately that this skiing would be much better as we were in nicely shaded areas that were still nice and powdery.

On the way up we were getting excited and having a hard time deciding if we wanted to ski the NE or NW bowl of the peak. They both looked good but NW was steeper and more treed. We made it to the top around 11:45 and had lunch. Another party showed up eventually and talked us into the steeper bowl.

The ski down this bowl was one of my favorite backcountry runs I have ever done. It was nice knee deep powder on moderately steep snow that was very smooth. We were hooting and hollering the whole way down. We were originally thinking we would go back to the top and try the other bowl but we decided that one was too good to not do again.

We made it back to the top around 12:45 and enjoyed the beer (weird German IPA) that we had carried around all day. The second run down was just as good as the first. At this point we decided we should probably head back to the car to get back to town when we intended. We did some scooching across the flats in the basin and then were back on the trail where we did some quick side stops now and then to reduce speed. It was pretty good conditions for skiing down the trail. We made it back to the lodge just before 2.

We walked back to the car and were looking to get some quick food and beer before heading home. We struggled to find any good quick food and decided to hit Subway and then take our sandwiches to Half Lion Brewing in Sumner. Pretty good beer and a cool space with a nice sunset view of Rainier. A great day of skiing with FRIENDS!

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Download GPS track

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Recommended brew: Half Lion Brewing Suntop IPA

Gear Used:

• Avalanche beacon/shovel/probe
• Backcountry boots/skis/skins
• Glacier glasses
• GPS
• Helmet

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