Mt.Pilchuck is a scenic little hill on the far western edge of the Cascades. A popular hike in the summertime and a really fun ski in the spring when road access becomes reasonable. We had a huge group of seven skiers, but we all moved fast and racked up two laps off the top on Saturday before the weather got cloudy and rainy.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Mt.Pilchuck ski
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Mt.Stuart
Cold, windy weather Saturday gave way to perfect (maybe too warm) weather Sunday morning. Around Longs Pass the new snow depth was only a couple inches at most. Climbing up the Cascadian couloir , the snowpack was very solidly frozen, but nearing the top of the couloir there were some hollow sounding wind slabby pockets of around a foot or more of new snow. As we met up with the bootpack from a party climbing the south side we saw a loose snow slide rumble down the upper pitch leading to the false summit. All parties took a bee-line to the south ridge and switch to downhill mode from there...figuring there was enough sun-baked fresh snow still on the upper slope to warrant being conservative.
Skiing the Cascadian was a fine plan B after accessing the summit (and Ulrichs) was a no-go. The snow was pretty good corn with the few spots of windslab being cooked into mush by the time we got to them....no slab activity, just the occasional large cinnamon rolls bounding downhill.
Cornices around Longs Pass proper have not collapsed yet to provide an easy entry/exit to Ingalls Creek valley, but traversing a little further south from the pass you'll find a cornice free path. FYI, we did see evidence on neighboring mountains of cornice fall causing some rather significant slab releases.
As of this weekend, the 5.5 miles to the Esmerelda trailhead were snowcovered except a couple short stretches and one that was long enough to justify taking the skis off...though I imagine by next weekend, those bare patches could be a bit longer. Fortunately the slight downhill grade on the road combined with snowmobile compaction of the snow allowed us to double-pole and skate the the road back out sans skins in just a bit more than an hour.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Spearhead Traverse day trip
Words by Becky:
For years Pete and I have semi-joked about how great it would be to pull off a one-day Spearhead Traverse and then immediately check in to the Fairmont Chateau Whistler to recover. Saturday, we did just that.
We caught the gondola from the base at 8:00am on the dot, but sadly Glacier Express didn’t start spinning until 8:45 and the T-bar til 9:15. We actually skinned from the bottom of the T-bar just to get going, but of course they started it up right as we hit the top. Oh well, what’s an extra 500 feet of climbing?
We exited the ski area and started the Traverse around 9:45. We were not alone – at least a dozen other day trippers were out in front of us, also taking advantage of the perfect weather. The snow on north-facing aspects was light, shin-deep powder – great skiing, if you had the time to stop and take a lap (which we did not)! “Tomorrow!” we thought.
We made slow, but steady progress, feeling more and more confident as the day went on that we might actually make it out without needing the headlamps. We were heading up the crusty Diavolo Glacier towards Overlord by 3:30. After all the short-ish descents on the Blackcomb side it was nice to get some nice long slides heading back towards Whistler. We found the best turns of the day on the back side of Fissile.
Climbed up and over Cowboy Ridge and started the descent down Singing Pass Trail around 6pm. Holy balls that thing is 7 miles long, but fully snow-covered and pretty much all downhill so we appreciated sliding down it vs. climbing up and over the Musical Bumps. We popped out at the ski area a few minutes past 7pm and made a beeline for Zogs to inhale a bowl of poutine and then on to The Fairmont for hot tubs and beer.
Went back up to the Blackcomb BC on Sunday to get some of the sweet, sweet powdies we saw the day before, but sadly the wind came in hard the night before and was still blowing to beat the band so we settled for a few heavily wind-affected laps on Decker and then headed back to the comfort of the hotel.
For years Pete and I have semi-joked about how great it would be to pull off a one-day Spearhead Traverse and then immediately check in to the Fairmont Chateau Whistler to recover. Saturday, we did just that.
We caught the gondola from the base at 8:00am on the dot, but sadly Glacier Express didn’t start spinning until 8:45 and the T-bar til 9:15. We actually skinned from the bottom of the T-bar just to get going, but of course they started it up right as we hit the top. Oh well, what’s an extra 500 feet of climbing?
We exited the ski area and started the Traverse around 9:45. We were not alone – at least a dozen other day trippers were out in front of us, also taking advantage of the perfect weather. The snow on north-facing aspects was light, shin-deep powder – great skiing, if you had the time to stop and take a lap (which we did not)! “Tomorrow!” we thought.
We made slow, but steady progress, feeling more and more confident as the day went on that we might actually make it out without needing the headlamps. We were heading up the crusty Diavolo Glacier towards Overlord by 3:30. After all the short-ish descents on the Blackcomb side it was nice to get some nice long slides heading back towards Whistler. We found the best turns of the day on the back side of Fissile.
Climbed up and over Cowboy Ridge and started the descent down Singing Pass Trail around 6pm. Holy balls that thing is 7 miles long, but fully snow-covered and pretty much all downhill so we appreciated sliding down it vs. climbing up and over the Musical Bumps. We popped out at the ski area a few minutes past 7pm and made a beeline for Zogs to inhale a bowl of poutine and then on to The Fairmont for hot tubs and beer.
Went back up to the Blackcomb BC on Sunday to get some of the sweet, sweet powdies we saw the day before, but sadly the wind came in hard the night before and was still blowing to beat the band so we settled for a few heavily wind-affected laps on Decker and then headed back to the comfort of the hotel.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Snoqualmie Pass touring
After what seemed like a long time this winter of short tours, lapping powder, some failed trips due to spooky snowpack, we finally got a weekend with reasonable weather and relatively straightforward snow.
Becky and I got in a nice tour up Mt.Catherine on Saturday...ran a few laps on the better snow up high, then Sunday we headed back up to Snoqualmie Pass with Mica, Andy, and Kirsten to ski the Chair Peak circumnavigation.
The morning started off sunny and there was good snow from the get-go. We were worried that the route has gotten all tracked out by skiers on Saturday, but as we climbed through the forest we spotted a uphill track being set by a solo skier...what luck...the guarantee of untracked conditions and only one skier in front of us doing the bulk of the trail breaking.
Up and over Bryant Col and down to Melakwa Lakes in great knee-deep powder, then a long gentle climb to Melakwa Pass and couple great pitches of skiing down to Snow Lake. Nice to finally get in one of the tours we take for granted most years.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Cowlitz Rocks...some mellow laps and moonlit camping
write-up by Becky...
Wanting to take advantage of the fine weather by spending the night out, but not wanting to bite off anything particularly committing, Pete and I headed down to Rainier to park ourselves out by Cowlitz Rocks Saturday night. As many have reported, Saturday morning was very, very windy and on the skin up to Cowlitz Rocks we grew a little concerned that not only would we not find anything worth skiing, but our dreams of basking in the sunshine might be squashed by the cold wind as well!
We climbed up to the saddle between the Paradise Glacier and Cowlitz Rocks to get a look at the northeast facing slope off the backside of Cowlitz. It was in the shade at that point and looked better than anything we’d seen thus far so after a little poking at the snow we ripped the skins and headed down to find surprisingly pleasant turns! The snow was slightly sun-effected, but the crust was not aggressive for the most part and we got a good 800 feet of very decent skiing out of it! We decided our objective for the weekend would be to farm that little slope for all it was worth!
While we were skinning back up, we ran into Jason and Kyle who were doing a three day trip from Paradise to Crystal Mountain. The wind had died down considerably by the time we got back to the saddle so we pitched our tent on a nice perch facing southwest and soaked in the amazing sunset. After an evening of playing with 30-second night exposures on Pete’s camera, we awoke to more amazing alpenglow and set off to harvest a few more runs. The morning sun made the previous day’s crust more compliant, as Pete put it, so the turns were even better!
After two laps we were ready to pack up and head out. We were a little worried about the quantity and degree of crust we might encounter on the ski out Edith Basin, but we were, again, pleasantly surprised to find all the snow perfectly edgeable and some, dare I say, almost corn-like.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
News Years again at Cascade Powder Cats Yurt
Just like last year, Mica, Andy, Anastasia, Marcus, Mary, Chad, Becky, and I had a New Years ski trip to the Cascade Powder Cats yurt up near Stevens Pass. Early Friday morning we all piled our gear into the company's snowcat for an hour ride up to the yurt tucked into the north bowl of Windy Ridge at about 4600'. Once we got our gear unpacked, Ryan and his assistants ran us through a multiple beacon search scenario just to make sure we had our heads on straight before briefing us on their observations of what the snow/avy conditions were and giving us some recommendations of the best spots to tour to...then they cut us loose to run amok for the next three days.
Conditions were wonderfully stable given the quantity of the snow...finally a storm came in warm and left cold which gave us a 'right side up' snowpack, and we did our best to track the heck out of the terrain over the next three days.
Friday we had off and on snow showers that picked up overnight and dropped another foot of powder, Saturday was perfect...great visibility, light wind, tons of new snow, Saturday night the wind kicked up and stayed strong through Sunday so our skiing on Sunday was an exercise in finding the least wind-affected terrain but we still got plenty of good turns.
A great way to celebrate the new year!
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