Binding Blues

Eddies alpine bowl was stable enough today with a few inches on a hard base, sloughy.  SRJesse, J-rock and yours truly made our way from the lower parking pull out up to Eddies in nearly perfect winter weather, mid 20's, no wind, good visibility.  It all vanished at Eddies peak.

The alpine wind picked up and blew, the visibility declined.  The longer we stayed, the harder it blew, it seemed.  One of J-rock's heel bindings refused to cooperate; it just wouldn't click into his heel.  We worked on it with the wind blowing on the summit ridge until our hands were frozen.  With frozen hands, Jon freed his mind and rode the summit bowl semi-free heeled with one heel properly clicked in and the other free. 

"Free the heel, free the mind" probably wasn't Jon's first thought.  We tried to adjust the binding again, down below the alpine bowl out of most of the wind, but it just wasn't happening.  Jon surmised that his Quiver Killer mount in the morning before our trip was one screw pattern too far back.

The summit bowl had 4-6" new snow on a hard base.  Middle elevations had deeper snow with a sublimely soft base.  The lower mountain forest had the typical frozen snow bomb crust.  Ingram Creek had nice fords, and the slog in/out was quite pleasant with a couple of inches fresh, fast snow.