Finally some weather!

Forecast looks good for the next few days, if you can get about 5000'.
http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?site=sew&textField1=47.330&textField2=-121.486&zone=1

Teanaway Dec 19

It started out so promising! We had a pineapple earlier in the week with lots of rain and high snow levels. It was supposed to get colder on Saturday so we were hoping to find some good touring up high; we were optimistic that the higher elevations would receive some snow at the end of the storm. Ian, Aaron and I took the snowmobiles out to Teanaway and headed up the trail in a drizzle. Now I'm a novice on the sled, so I worked way to hard and was just exhaused after a short 10-mile run up the trail. Then I got the sled stuck twice (luckily not too bad), much to the chagrin of my partners. The rain kept coming down, even at 6,000'. We saw a massive wet slide come off of Esmerelda and decided there would be no touring on any slope that day. Near the end of the valley we parked the sleds and put on the touring skis and decided to just skin the rest of the way up the valley.
I've never heard as much whumping as I did that day. The rain was percolating through the snow and the whole snowpack would settle every 1/2 hour or so. We stayed on flat terrain and made the best of it. We were wet, but it was warm so not too miserable. We blasted out on the sleds and were back at the cars by 3:30.