On the Wednesday after Catherine and I’s return from Leavenwroth, I decided it was time for a tour. The snow had piled up and settled down since the weekend, and despite the relatively low base compared to last spring, I gave Yodelin another try. There were two other groups skinning up, and the whole area is relatively protected, so my biggest concern was falling in a tree well, but luckily at least most of those were filled in. Route finding was a bit difficult since its turns out the access road is full of brush when it’s missing 5-8 feet of snow. It was a true East Coast skin heading in: frozen solid, and lots of thick brush. Luckily the higher elevations had over a foot of light and fluffy powder on top.

Conditions in the PNW have been even worse than last January , so it’s been tough to get the touring in. People have been doing it, but finding good routes as a difficult challenge and I’m not that familiar with the early season routes yet, aside from Rainier. This was my first tour since late last June, early July when I skinned up to Camp Muir. Taking a few laps at Yodelin is certainly a different sort of tour, but it was fun nonetheless.

Heading out was just as hard as skinning up due to the low coverage, but in between I got a few creamy turns. It was a fun walk in the woods and certainly an interesting way to start the touring season. Though it was fun, in retrospect I perhaps should’ve waited to go touring a few more days. It rained everywhere the day after, but I was also just shaking off a cold, which has since turned into a chronic cough probably due to spending the day inhaling cold mountain air…