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www.turns-all-year.com
| Earl Peak skiing photos: Bean Creek, Standup Creek, North Fork Teanaway
Turns All Year: Ski Trip Photo Galleries | This is a gallery of Earl Peak skiing photos. Thumbnail images on this page can be clicked to view the full-sized photos, and lead into a slide show sequence for the gallery. The photos are from an April backcountry skiing trip to Earl Peak, via Bean Creek basin in the North Fork Teanaway region of the east central Washington Cascades. We first skied a run on south slopes into Standup Creek drainage, then finished with run down west slopes into Bean Creek basin.
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| | | Earl Peak, south bowl and west face, Bean Creek basin and Standup Creek, North Fork Teanaway River, Washington, April 27, 2007
(Click any of the photos to view large versions)
Skinning up the southeast
ridge of Earl Peak | 
David skiing into Earl Peak's
south bowl near the top | 
Top of south bowl leading
into Standup Creek | 
Nice skiing near the top of
the south bowl of Earl Peak | 
More nice turns, south
bowl of Earl Peak | 
David skiing into
Standup Creek drainage | 
The crust was still supportive
and providing good skiing | 
ĘThat's how Teanaway
turns should be | 
Looking down Standup Creek
drainage, with good coverage | 
Skiing in the lower mush
zone of Standup Creek | 
Some challenging mush skiing | 
Skinning out of Standup Creek
toward the top of Earl Peak | 
Charles traversing the main
west face gully of Earl Peak | 
Charles skiing Earl Peak
west gully just below the top | 
Skiing Earl Peak west gully
below the top section |
Photos by David Koelle and Charles Eldridge
| Backcountry skiing trip report:
Earl Peak, south bowl and west face, Bean Creek basin and Standup Creek, North Fork Teanaway River, Washington, April 27, 2007
We were stopped by shady snow piles on the North Fork Teanaway Road about 2 miles from Beverly Creek trailhead, although the road was mostly bare. A monster truck had tried to drive through the shady piles during the day but only got about 10 feet. Snow soft even in the morning due to cloud cover. The creek crossing was not a problem. From Bean Creek basin we skinned up to Earl Peak's southeast ridge then up the ridge to top (still good coverage on the ridge). Surface snow was very wet - squeeged lots of water out of the skins. We first skied 1400 feet down south slopes of Earl Peak into Standup Creek drainage. The top 500 feet was very nice (frozen enough to stay on on the surface), but the rest was deep slush, 18" in a lot of places. There would have been scary slide activity if steeper, and if it had not been overcast would have been worse too. The Standup Creek drainage has got nice terrain, though, and a pretty long run is possible with good snow pack.
We then skinned back up the southeast ridge of Earl Peak and skied the main west side chute into Bean Creek basin. Similar story, the top section had decent skiing (through the steepest part) but then deep slush. The worst part of that run was that coverage seemed to be a bit low, and with the almost bottomless slush we were concerned about plunging through to rocks. We stayed skier's left of Bean Creek all the way out. A silver lining was that there was enough snow on the lower trail to ski all the way to the trailhead bridge.
The bottom line is that there was no Teanaway miracle corn today, I guess due to continuous cloud cover and thus lack of refreezing at night. Worst snow I've had in the Teanaway area (but definitely not the worst snow I've ever had!).
Charles |
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