Early Season Touring - Yodelin & East Peak

I've been out on a few low key early season touring days as the snowfall has been sporadic after a big storm in January. The snow has been weird and yesterday I was skiing Stevens and it was 40 degrees and sunny, great spring skiing conditions, but not idea for mid-February.

The first tour at Yodelin was the first time I had explored there and it was a great time. The skin track was easy to follow up and the terrain options were abundant. We didn't make our way to the top of the ridge, settling on some lower options, but between the blue skies and a few powder stashes it was a great day to be on the hill.

View across the valley from the skin track

The skin track was well defined and well travelled

Light a fluffy pow on the N facing aspect

Following up Yodelin, I went down to the Crystal backcountry with the goal of summiting East Peak and possibly skiing around the Bullion Basin and/or Cement Basin areas. Conditions on this day were less than ideal, there was a rock solid crust with an icy top layer over everything. I hadn't been there and ended up taking a right where I should have gone left, leading to a much more difficult tour than what was necessary. It was a brutal day all around. It was a good learning experience and certainly tested some of my navigating skills.

Touring through an old wildfire burn area, would be great low-angle tree skiing with fresh snow

Hopefully we start to see some storms roll in, we haven't had a substantial snow fall in weeks. So, do your snow dances, pray to Ullr, sacrifice a goat, do whatever you need to do to help nature give us that great gift of snow.