Source Lake Ski Tour (December 2022)

Source Lake ski tour's terrain is suitable for a confident blue-run skier– however, much of the route involves avalanche terrain so travelers need to have their avalanche skills dialed.

For someone who already has their AIARE Level 1, this could be considered a Snoqualmie Pass beginner-friendly ski tour. Despite its reputation for being crowded and close to the city, Snoqualmie is gnarly – a lot of steep drops, tight trees, and avalanche terrain. That makes the Source Lake tour look like a peaceful walk in the park in comparison, but you're still traveling beneath the avalanche runouts of many large chutes. Avalanches can and do, regularly, reach Source Lake itself.

Living in Seattle provides easy access to world-class terrain. In just an hour in the car from the city, and another hour skinning up from the parking lot, and you can be at a beautiful alpine lake:

Due to the easy access, this zone has a reputation for being pretty busy. We went on a Saturday and though there were definitely other people, everyone was friendly, and it wasn't that bad!

NOTE: Summit at Snoqualmie guidelines have updated and there are new guidelines to accessing this backcountry zone:

During Alpental/Summit's off-season, you may be able to use the outtrack as an uptrack as I later describe. However, this won't work for the 2023-2024 season, as Alpental is undergoing construction for new lifts.

We parked in Alpental Ski Area's upper lot, easily finding the cat track that soon passes a large water tower on your right. Yield to Alpental's downhill traffic as you skin along the banks of the South Fork of Snoqualmie River. Skiers use this track to get back down to the ski area from the resort's Back Bowls.

The cat track passes a steep, large boulder field and ends shortly before Source Lake. On the way out, sidehilling across this slope's tight path was intimidating for me as a newer skiier, but I made it across just fine.

We then followed the skin track through large trees the rest of the way. Unless you're heading out immediately following a storm, the area is so popular, you probably won't get lost – the skin track is always obvious.

Since it was our first tour of the season and I had a lot of work to do on my ski skills (I went on to bag 40 ski days this season), we kept it simple. We basked in the December sun, then skied a lap on a slope near the lake and began our descent back to the car.

It was a picture perfect day: blue skies, magical clouds rolling through the valley, fluffy-snow covered evergreens, and plenty of pillowy powder. We zipped through the pristine powder, darting around the trees.

There are many, many options in this zone from powdery glades to big chutes. You can read about them in Beacon Guidebooks' Snoqualmie Pass edition, which includes helpful helicopter photos.

I logged around 4 miles and ~900 feet of gain. Not the steepest descent, but I was able to make it out easily on skis. Greg had to push a bit as a splitboarder.

I'm excited to return to this zone as a more skilled and confident skier! I'm hoping to complete the Chair Peak Circumnavigation this season.