May 26-28, 2008, Tatoosh: Turns, Tours, and Traverses

Larry_R and I set out looking for a ski camping opportunity where we could put the skis on at the car and have a short approach, as we were both recovering from our respective ski camping trips last week.  Tatoosh fit the bill perfectly.,

Approach note: although the Steven's Canyon Road is not open to through traffic, one can legally drive to the various Tatoosh access pullouts.  The NPS issued us a crosscountry zone permit to camp in the area.

Short read: corn season is here!  Details unnecessary, simply follow the sun around the sky to get optimal conditions.  Even sun-baked slopes had only 3 or 4 inches ski penetration, without causing large wet slides, otherwise 1 to 2 inch penetration without evening temps below freezing.

NWHikers lurkers: Scramble season is prime in the Tatosh right now on firm snow!

With the short approach we put up camp, Monday noon, on one of the small benches below the Castle at 5600 feet (picture 1 Larry eyeing the afternoon opportunities) This gave us ample time for some afternoon skiing.  After setting up camp we headed to the Castle Pinnacle saddle.  Larry stayed local, skiing the north facing stuff around camp, and I headed toward Plummer/Pinnacle saddle.  First stop was the top of Plummer Peak 6370 ft.  I immediately noticed very dark and ominous clouds heading toward us, enveloping the Cowlitz Chimneys, and moving fast.  Memories of the past two weeks and ski camping trips??  I therefore did a short run NW off the top of Plummer (minus 15 vertical feet of melted out rock) to the Denman/Plummer saddle.  From the saddle I traversed up and around the SW side of Denman Peak 6006 ft. and reached the top of Denman from the NW.  I thought about going down the North Slope. But with the clouds now right over me and already obscuring the top of Pinnacle Peak, I retraced my known route to the top of the Denman chutes.  Glad I did because the chute was a great run, and the north side of Denman dead ended in cliffs.  The rain beat me back to camp and soon intense lightning was crashing all around both of us.  Larry and I talked how from our slightly different locations we were counting less than 3 "one-thousand-ones€¦" per lightning and thunder interval!  It was close!
Typical of my Spring camping experiences this year it rained until at least 4:00 in the morning on Tuesday.  We woke, however, to broken clouds and rapidly began our morning by traversing toward Foss Peak.  Larry went immediately to the top and I continued on a traverse toward Unicorn Saddle.  I had hopes of continuing on to Stevens Peak, but after seeing that it was mostly boot a scramble, opted to stop at the South summit of Unicorn.  The ski off the top and into the Unicorn Gulley was exquisite (picture 2)!  I noticed tracks from the weekend that turned out to be Ron J's party but they already had melted back into the general snow pack.  After skiing the north facing run to 5500 ft. I headed back up to Foss Peak 6524 ft.  Here I lounged and enjoyed views before skiing and allowing the skins to dry.  I descended the west slope to the unnamed pond and then turned north through the saddle for the north facing basin run down to 4900 feet above Louise Lake and the Stevens Canyon road.  Then it was back up to camp for a beautiful evening (picture 3: and why it is so worth staying the night and not always day tripping from the car!).
On Wednesday we limited ourselves to one short run back to the Castle/Pinnacle saddle where I skied around the south slope to enjoy a pleasant scramble on the solid class 2 rock of the Pinnacle Peak 6562ft. gulley.  The snow on the run was near perfect corn with slightly less than an inch ski penetration.

Lunch at the restored Paradise Lodge was a real enjoyable experience!