Turns out that I did do a few more trips than I had thought. In my last post I mentioned that I had broken my camera. Well, when I used the memory card from my old camera in my new camera, I discovered a couple more trips that I had done but had never downloaded the photos.
This Yodelin trip was for the backcountry ski class that Everett Mountaineers offers every winter. Randy and I ski Yodelin fairly often each winter because it's a safe place to go when the avalanche danger is high.
Yodelin is a former ski area but now the lot serves as extra parking for busy days at Stevens Pass. Yodelin itself can be fairly busy but this year didn't seem quite as busy since the snow cover was low during typical winter season. Nice for us because we had fresh lines all the time. The bad news is that we have to break our own trail and sometimes break it again when the snow fills the track in while we're skiing down and want another lap.
Anyway, there were 6 of us on this trip: one instructor (Lee Wilcox), two assistants (Randy and me), and three students [Greg (accomplished snowboarder), Tomas (beginner split-boarder), and Al (accomplished skier)]. We took the students up to the tippy top of the ridge and skied down through the trees. Randy, Greg, and Al swooshed through gracefully. Tomas did okay and Lee and I made it with our own unique styles. We made two more laps up to the top. I lead the first one then Randy lead the second one. He's harder to keep up with than I am. Tomas had a hard time climbing with his split board. Greg too to a certain degree because split boards are harder to manage uphill than skis. Tomas actually opted to sit out the third lap and wait for us to come down. After the rest of us had our fill we all began the descent to the parking lot. Skiing down slopes is one thing but eventually we hit the fire road, which resembles a luge. Tomas ended up walking down due to a number of equipment and terrain difficulties that frustrated him. We were able to stick together by skiing in shifts, waiting and so on all the way down. At the end of the day we were able to ski about 4000' of vertical, which is a decent day in the backcountry, a good goal anyway.
Here are the pictures.