This spring has been a bit of a bust so far.... a few failed trips, a couple colds between Becky and me, and some weekends spent doing homework for various continuing education requirements and we pretty much wrote off the month of April.
Seeing that Saturday's forecast looked decent, and that it would be followed by a week of wet, cool weather in the Cascades we wanted to get out and ski something....anything...just so long as it wasn't skinning/skiing laps at a closed ski resort for a few hours of exercise (like we'd done the past couple weekends).
We barreled out of town Friday night and were snoozing in the back of the Subaru at Rainy Pass by midnight. Up at 5am and heading towards Lake Ann by 6am, we figured we'd go check out Black Peak. I don't think there'd been freezing temperatures at pass elevations for a couple weeks, so the snow was soft from the get-go...made for easy skinning but we wondered what the snow would be like once the sun peeked out from the clouds.
By late morning we'd done the two mile traverse from Heather Pass to Wing Lake and started climbing towards the south col. Skis on the backpacks and helmets and axes out at the col, the south chute that I'd booted up before unfortunately had a couple melted out spots, so we climbed a chute off the left that looked like continuous ski from up high. It was reasonable calf-knee deep post holing up the slope with the occasional melted out hole that we'd find when we'd drop waist deep into the snow.
We reached the top of the continuous snow, about 200 vertical feet from the top, around noon. Not wanting to stumble across the summit ridge to the top in our ski boots, and not wanting to delay out descent any further, we called it a day there....a few quick pictures of Goode, Logan, and the rest of the North Cascades panorama to our south and then it was time to go. The snow was sloppy but a bed surface of perfectly skiable snow was only a foot or two below the glop. We'd just traverse the slope, ski cut off all the loose snow and let it rumble downhill, then ski the firmer snow underneath.
From the south col back to Heather Pass, it was herky-jerky moisture saturated snow...not particularly good skiing, but hey it was a sunny day in the North Cascades and the quality of skiing came a distance second to just being out.
We made quick work of the short climb from Lewis Lake back up to Heather Pass and then had a pretty quick descending traverse back around to Rainy Pass and the car.
As usual for any North Cascades trip, we finished the day in Marblemount at 'Good Food' eating burgers in the sunshine....I think Becky enjoyed that almost as much as the ski tour.
Seeing that Saturday's forecast looked decent, and that it would be followed by a week of wet, cool weather in the Cascades we wanted to get out and ski something....anything...just so long as it wasn't skinning/skiing laps at a closed ski resort for a few hours of exercise (like we'd done the past couple weekends).
We barreled out of town Friday night and were snoozing in the back of the Subaru at Rainy Pass by midnight. Up at 5am and heading towards Lake Ann by 6am, we figured we'd go check out Black Peak. I don't think there'd been freezing temperatures at pass elevations for a couple weeks, so the snow was soft from the get-go...made for easy skinning but we wondered what the snow would be like once the sun peeked out from the clouds.
By late morning we'd done the two mile traverse from Heather Pass to Wing Lake and started climbing towards the south col. Skis on the backpacks and helmets and axes out at the col, the south chute that I'd booted up before unfortunately had a couple melted out spots, so we climbed a chute off the left that looked like continuous ski from up high. It was reasonable calf-knee deep post holing up the slope with the occasional melted out hole that we'd find when we'd drop waist deep into the snow.
We reached the top of the continuous snow, about 200 vertical feet from the top, around noon. Not wanting to stumble across the summit ridge to the top in our ski boots, and not wanting to delay out descent any further, we called it a day there....a few quick pictures of Goode, Logan, and the rest of the North Cascades panorama to our south and then it was time to go. The snow was sloppy but a bed surface of perfectly skiable snow was only a foot or two below the glop. We'd just traverse the slope, ski cut off all the loose snow and let it rumble downhill, then ski the firmer snow underneath.
From the south col back to Heather Pass, it was herky-jerky moisture saturated snow...not particularly good skiing, but hey it was a sunny day in the North Cascades and the quality of skiing came a distance second to just being out.
We made quick work of the short climb from Lewis Lake back up to Heather Pass and then had a pretty quick descending traverse back around to Rainy Pass and the car.
As usual for any North Cascades trip, we finished the day in Marblemount at 'Good Food' eating burgers in the sunshine....I think Becky enjoyed that almost as much as the ski tour.
