Saturday, December 23, 2017

Snoqualmie Pass touring



link to more photos

Andy, Becky, and I found sunshine, stable powder, and ample solitude out on a nice rambly tour at Snoqualmie Pass.  Racked up about 5500vf of mostly great, shallow powdery turns and really didn't see too many folks until everyone was on the shuffle back across Snow Lake.










Sunday, October 1, 2017

Chelan-Sawtooth Wilderness, Star Pk & Courtney Pk


For years, our traditional fall trip was to hike through the Enchantments to gawk at the larches as they turn neon yellow for a couple weeks.  The last time we visited the Enchantments though, we were a bit turned off by the crowds, the hikers listening to music out loud on their smartphones, the steady stream of trail-runners wanting to blast by us...the Enchantments are just a bit over-loved.  So, it was time to try somewhere new.
Fortunately the east side of the North Cascades has many more larches than those in the Enchantments, and if you're willing to get off the beaten path a bit, you can find some uncrowded, no-permits necessary larchy lands.   It was pretty chilly with the new snow and all, but we still got in climbs of Courtney and Star Pks while we were out there.

Linky to the photo albums






Friday, July 28, 2017

Lyman Glacier, Chiwawa Mtn


Becky and I were home for approximately 24 hours from the Pasayten Wilderness when we realized that with our remaining three days of summer break, we could squeak in another short trip...and revisit our old nemesis, Chiwawa.   We'd tried twice, from two different routes and been skunked...but this time we came with way more technical gear than we'd likely need in order to cruise the glacier no matter how icy conditions were.
Turns out the glacier was in fantastic shape...no ice screw or rope needed at all... a super fun climb and fantastic views.  Nice way to wrap up our two week break.

Linky to the photo albums








Saturday, July 15, 2017

Summer break - two weeks in the North Cascades

Becky and I had the last two weeks of July off to get in some quality time in the North Cascades.

Trip #1 was the 'Devils Dome Loop' - a fun three-day jaunt around Jack and Crater Mountains.   Lots of wildflowers, the use of a motorboat shuttle to cut off a day of shoreline hiking, and perfect weather!





After we wrapped that up, it was east to the Methow Valley for a couple days of lazy hotel time at the Freestone Inn.   Acting like adults and sorting our gear while enjoying a swimming pool and hotel happy hour was pretty nice.



Trip #2 was north of Winthrop, up into the Pasayten Wilderness.  We did a loop out of the Chewech River/ThirtyMile Trailhead...climbing Remmel, Amphitheater, and Apex Mtns along the way.  Sadly, the clouds and thundery weather we had while staying at the Freestone ended up being the storm that sparked the Pasayten fires that raged the rest of the summer out there- we were lucky to get in the trip we did before the mountains blew up.

Linky to the rest of the photos








Friday, May 26, 2017

Mt.Hood circumnavigation & Wy'East Face

Why do in one day what you can do in three?

From what Becky and I had read, it seems like most everyone knocks out a Mt. Hood circumnavigation in a single day, but we decided to spend a couple nights out so we could be leisurely and have time for a ski of the Wy'east face on our last day. We figured a late morning start on day 1 would allow us to ski the west and north aspects later in the day and get softer snow, then after camping we could catch the east side of the mountain in the morning sun.

We skinned out of Timberline and hit Illumination Saddle around noon. Coverage and snow conditions on the Reid Glacier were great. Only had a couple crevasses starting to open up as we scooted through between Yocum Ridge and the glacier at around 8000ft then made a descending traverse to the broad lower Yocum Ridge at about 7500ft. We had a short walk on dirt/scree over to the Sandy Glacier where we tried to hold a contour. We mightve been a little low on this next section as we had to skin and boot back up a bit to get onto the Ladd Glacier. From there it was a smooth shuffle across the Ladd and Coe glaciers. A short, mostly snow bootpack got us to the Snowdome/Langille Glacier side of the mountain where we found a recently abandoned campsite so we made use of their snow platform and settled in for the rest of the day. Not sure how easy it is to access the NW side of Hood, but wow there is some fun looking terrain around the Ladd and Glisan glaciers area, wish we wouldve had more time to spend over there.

The next morning we opted to get in a nice mellow ski down the Elliot to about 7000ft where we were able to squeak in a descending traverse onto Cooper Spur. The skin back up the spur to 9000ft was punctuated with many breaks to watch the hardier souls climbing up and skiing down the Cooper Spur route.  From 9000ft we were able to rip skins and slide quickly around the east side of the mountain all the way to the base of the Wyeast route. Only had to scoot around a couple opening crevasses on the Newton Clark, the coverage is just really, really good on Hood right now. It was only lunchtime but wed already arrived at our next camp. Since the snow was well-cooked we spent a lazy afternoon reading and playing cards.

Around dinnertime we had a surprising gear malfunction, the two partially filled smaller cartridges we had been using with our jetboil ran dry so we moved on to using a new canister. Either the threads on our jetboil stove are damaged or the new canister was defective but we couldnt get the fuel threaded on to the stove it just spun and spun and then popped off. Fortunately it was warm enough that a trash bag solar still and nalgenes filled with snow on warm rocks provided ample water we just had to suffer through eating a dinner of cold ramen noodles, bleck.

Sunday morning we were up at 5:30, and on the move by 6:30, we left the camping gear behind and with light packs cramponed up the Wyeast face, we were circumnavigating the mountain, but we needed some good fall-line turns too. Corn-o-clock came fast and by the time we hit the top of the face at 9 the slope was ready to ski. Although the face is currently marred with quite a bit of debris (looks like a skier triggered sluff run amok from days earlier) there was still ample smooth corn available.

We were back at camp in no time and after grabbing our tent we started down the White River glacier. We shouldve put the skins on and regained the south side up high but we figured we could use one of the several old ski tracks we saw that contoured west out of the valley lower down. The eastern exposure mixed with the hot temps made the traverse out of the White River canyon pretty unpleasant, but we eventually popped up and over and had the home stretch down to the car.

Given the dirty snow and soon to be patchy coverage between Wy'east and Timberline - climbing out of Mt.Hood Meadows is definitely the way to go right now for a better fall-line ski to your car.


After our ghetto cold ramen dinner, we were happy to stroll up the parking lot and fill our bellies at the all-you-can-eat lunch buffet at Timberline Lodge









Sunday, March 26, 2017

Sierras Spring Break



Spring Break in the Sierras-
Becky and I have done a couple longish backpacking trips in the Sierras, the John Muir Trail and the northern half of the Sierra High Route, but we’d never seen the range in the winter. This seemed like it this was the year to get down to California and finally do some touring, but her nursing school schedule had us limited to only a handful of days in late March. Decided four days prior to spring break that a short time in the sun in the Sierras would still be worth it, so we scrounged what info we could and barreled down there.
I think we basically spent four days skinning around mouths agape staring at the lifetime of beautiful ski runs to be had in every direction. The Dan Mingori & Nate Greenberg Backcountry Skiing Californias Eastern Sierra 2nd Edition is a fantastic guidebook. I’d also recommend getting the supplemental app (you can buy it or rent it), being new to the area, it was cool to have the routes accessible on our phone while out touring.
Road access is pretty good right now, but it’ll get better. In late April a lot more roads are plowed out so anglers can start fishing at all the high lakes. Buttermilk Rd suffered some damage this winter, you may need a 4x4 for that one, but it seems like a lot of the other roads are paved the whole way.  Rock Creek is the only snowpark in the Mammoth/Bishop vicinity, and supposedly you can buy a day pass at the snowpark, but we couldn’t find the pay station maybe its there, maybe it would be better to get a pass at the ranger station.
Watch the overnight low temps- seems like corn o clock can be as early as 9am some days. Maybe wind is less of an issue later in the spring, but wow did we have a windy day and got totally shut down on finding soft snow in the alpine on one of our tours.
We didn’t check out anything north of Mammoth- given our short amount of time, we only managed to do a tour around Convict Lake/Mini Morrison, then Bishop Bowl near North Lake, Mt.Alice out of Big Pine, and McGee, just south of Mammoth. The locals we met on McGee said some seasons it never gets enough snow to be skiable, but this year it was fat.

Wish we would’ve had a few weeks to spend down there- skiing wide open terrain into warm sagebrush valleys is a trip.








Wednesday, January 4, 2017

New Years skiing


Link to all the pictures here

I had a four-day weekend and Becky was on winter break and the snow conditions were setting up to make for an epic weekend.

Day 1 - Bullion Basin.   Amazingly our group never saw anyone on the east side of the basin all day. No other ski tracks to cross, no competition for what pitch to ski next, just total solitude.

Day 2 - Mt.Snoqualmie.   Becky and I wanted to get back to town in time to watch the Peach Bowl, so we figured we'd just do a quick half day.  We climbed up the Phantom trees and upper south slope of Snoqualmie and had some amazing views and great snow.  We were shocked that the Slot Couloir hadn't been skied yet that day, but as a rule we always like to have a rope to ski-cut the top of it....no rope (and not enough time either) so some other lucky folks got fresh tracks.

Day 3 - Chair Peak Circumnavigation.   Back up to Snoqualmie with our friends early on Sunday.   The snow was even better than the day before now that the breakable crust at the lower elevations was covered with about eight inches of fresh snow.
As we approached Byrant Col, the weather socked in and we couldn't see anything.   We were concerned about stability and lack of visibility, so we opted to tour around Pineapple Pass instead.   Every time I pass by Melakwa Lake, I wanna camp out there and ski all the slopes in the vicinity.  It was a pleasant surprise to reach Melakwa Pass and see that there were only three sets of ski tracks out in front of us...plenty of room for fresh lines for all of us.  Everyone kept chugging along and we rolled into the Alpental parking lot with about fifteen minutes of daylight left before we would've had to click on our headlamps.

Day 4 - Chair Peak north slopes.  The crew from the previous days touring wasn't up for another day, but Ross and Bob hadn't been out yet this weekend, so I tagged along with them.   First lap was down the Snow Lake couloir, then back up the north shoulder of Chair Peak and down the main north slopes to the lake.   I was glad the day wrapped up around 2pm as my legs were beginning to feel like lead bricks after the previous days trips.