“That resembled fun.”

Blessed with a 6pm sunset after a week off, Rob and I decided it was time to up the after-work ante and ski something a little further out there than our usual Hyak night laps.

We settled on a trip up to Pineapple Basin in the Alpental valley, where we’d check the snow for stability and consider skiing the Mongolia Chute, a 55° tight chute that descends from the top of the saddle between Bryant and Hemlock.

The previous week had been bad news for the cascades, especially Snoqualmie Pass, which received 9.5" of rain in the last storm cycle. Pineapple Basin would provide our best shot at decent snow, being north-facing at a respectable elevation of around 5000ft.

We made good time up the usual skin track to Source Lake, although I was as pleased as ever to have my ski crampons. The snow improved as we left the Source Lake basin and climbed up to Pineapple basin, and soon we had a view of Mongolia Chute.

Confident with the snow stability, as 1-3" of new low density snow sat atop chunky avalanche debris from the recent rain event, we started booting. Or at least I did; Rob had to adjust his crampons first. I was able to make it to the stop and snap some photos of Rob making record time up the chute, looking pretty cool in the process.

I asked Rob if I could have first tracks, since I was a little nervous about the skiing. I proceeded to drop in and take most of the fresh snow that sat atop the rain crust with me. It was pretty much unavoidable. Mostly firm edging while side-slipping my way down, I felt extremely guilty for how happy I was to be going first. The snow was in no condition to turn during the upper 55° steep section, but once past the choke I was able to get a few short, chunky hops in.

Meanwhile, Rob had dropped in and one of his skis immediately split apart. This left him unable to hold an edge or even keep his boot from ejecting. He was able to kick a step into the hard, icy crust and transition to down-climbing. I couldn’t do much from the bottom of the chute besides listen to the sounds of ice-chopping and swearing, so I got out from under the gun-barrel in case any snow, equipment, or Robs came flying down.

Eventually, Rob made it out of the chute and we made a precarious ski down the luge track to the car, with Rob’s broken ski ejecting on every left turn. Even still, when we made it to the top of the last downhill, to what Rob dubs “The Alpental 500”, we raced.

And Rob won.