PEAK PUTTERS

We launched from the West Richland Maverick shortly before 0700, braving the remnants of the hurricane-esque winds from the night before as we headed West. As crummy as it was outside, the views in the mirror and the windshield weren't terrible:





The winds calmed as we rolled Westward, but eventually ended up swirling around and switching direction completely, eventually pushing us the rest of the way into Union Gap:



We rolled through Tampico around 0830 and headed for the snow park:



After unloading and airing down, we headed up the North Fork in search of snow:







By the time we reached the turnoff to Blue Lake, we were in several inches of relatively fresh goodness, so we stopped and swapped our driving slippers for proper snow boots:



As we had prior engagements for the evening, we bypassed Blue Lake and instead headed directly up Darland:





Conditions outside steadily got worse as we gained elevation, but it was very easy going and we rapidly made our way to the summit to czek out the nonexistent view. The updated summit sign is pretty cool though









We played around a bit at the burnt out area just South of the summit, and then beat feet downhill for lunch:









Shortly after 1100hrs, we found ourselves at Tree Phones where OG knocked it out of the park with pulled pork burritos:





Bellies full and with deadlines looming, we begrudgingly continued the journey back down to the snowpark to air up, load up, and make the trip back home:



Albeit brief, the Darland loop had been good fun and it was nice to see the early snowpack starting to accumulate at higher elevation. Hopefully much, much more to come