June 1, 2008, Cutthroat Pk, NW Bowl, Avi debris
6/1/08
WA Cascades East Slopes North
1342
0
Once again, I tried to get my son on a nice simple up an down tour in a spectacular area and in nice weather to get him excited about doing this sort of thing. The forecast on Friday was not so nice for Saturday and better on Sunday. Of course Saturday was better than Sunday, but no matter it still turned out the be a fine day if not sunny.
I was originally going to take him up the Blue Lake trail to Early Winter Spire, but I thought of an old stash that had rewarded me with really nice skiing in open bowl conditions with scattered larches that was likely to be less crowded. As I typically do in this area we skipped the approach from the PCT parking area and just bolted up from the road at Porcupine Creek. Why people choose to add the added traverse is beyond me it is hardly much of an added climb from the road. The area I am talking about briefly follows the route to Cutthroat Pass but takes a jog east and heads directly up the bowl that faces WNW from Peak 7865. The attractive thing about this route is that it is uphill all the way, which means that it is downhill all the way back. No painful slog like we had with Lichtenburg last month.
The expectation is that this area would not have suffered so much from the short heat wave several weeks ago. Boy was I wrong! First of all, a very large slide from across the P. Creek dramatically blew down a large swath across the creek at about elevation 5300ft. Not so surprising since this came from a south facing aspect into an area that clearly has been affected before, but it was cool to see the blast zone had traveled well uphill several hundred vertical ft. having knocked over some of the larger trees uphill and taking lots of more delicate branches well into the forest uphill. In any case we stayed above the fray on the way in. My estimate is that his slide occurred several weeks ago.
We exited the forest into a nice small bowl just north of the ridge at 6000ft.
We continued to climb and then crossed a rib into the main part of the bowl where I was shocked to see there had been lots of recent avalanche activity. As far as I could see the whole area that I enjoyed skiing 5 years ago was a mess. The debris descended well into the trees below. As far as I could see, this activity involved much of the bowl and likely originated up high. There was lots of larch down. This slide clearly was more recent, my guess was that it went with last week's heat on the weekend.
Included in this avalanche activity, was a classic climax release zone above, which included a fracture escarpment of 8-10ft. deep (what ever the snow depth was at 6800ft. because it went to the heather). This slab released over a stauchwall probably 100ft. below the fracture and slid over the existing snowpack below it almost causing no effect on the snowpack below. It is remarkable something like this could occur that did not uproot the heather below it and did little to the snow that it slid on. I am posting my best picture, but I had difficulty because of fog. This starting zone resulted in a slide that was dwarfed by comparison to what happened throughout the rest of the area.
Also lots of old glide cracks were visible.
We ascended in a clear area to about 6600ft. and made the best of what we had. In fact the conditions were great (though limited!) and the skiing through the trees back to the road was a blast. The only issue there was that we skied a little low and had to cross the avi debris from the slide down low. (Even though we intentionally wanted to stay above it!)
My son seemed a little slow on the way up, but there was so much to see on this tour that I think that it kept his mind occupied. Once we ditched the skins he had tons of fun and finished pretty thrilled. Still waiting for that sunny tour where everything falls together, but this seemed to work out fine.
Alan
I was originally going to take him up the Blue Lake trail to Early Winter Spire, but I thought of an old stash that had rewarded me with really nice skiing in open bowl conditions with scattered larches that was likely to be less crowded. As I typically do in this area we skipped the approach from the PCT parking area and just bolted up from the road at Porcupine Creek. Why people choose to add the added traverse is beyond me it is hardly much of an added climb from the road. The area I am talking about briefly follows the route to Cutthroat Pass but takes a jog east and heads directly up the bowl that faces WNW from Peak 7865. The attractive thing about this route is that it is uphill all the way, which means that it is downhill all the way back. No painful slog like we had with Lichtenburg last month.
The expectation is that this area would not have suffered so much from the short heat wave several weeks ago. Boy was I wrong! First of all, a very large slide from across the P. Creek dramatically blew down a large swath across the creek at about elevation 5300ft. Not so surprising since this came from a south facing aspect into an area that clearly has been affected before, but it was cool to see the blast zone had traveled well uphill several hundred vertical ft. having knocked over some of the larger trees uphill and taking lots of more delicate branches well into the forest uphill. In any case we stayed above the fray on the way in. My estimate is that his slide occurred several weeks ago.
We exited the forest into a nice small bowl just north of the ridge at 6000ft.
We continued to climb and then crossed a rib into the main part of the bowl where I was shocked to see there had been lots of recent avalanche activity. As far as I could see the whole area that I enjoyed skiing 5 years ago was a mess. The debris descended well into the trees below. As far as I could see, this activity involved much of the bowl and likely originated up high. There was lots of larch down. This slide clearly was more recent, my guess was that it went with last week's heat on the weekend.
Included in this avalanche activity, was a classic climax release zone above, which included a fracture escarpment of 8-10ft. deep (what ever the snow depth was at 6800ft. because it went to the heather). This slab released over a stauchwall probably 100ft. below the fracture and slid over the existing snowpack below it almost causing no effect on the snowpack below. It is remarkable something like this could occur that did not uproot the heather below it and did little to the snow that it slid on. I am posting my best picture, but I had difficulty because of fog. This starting zone resulted in a slide that was dwarfed by comparison to what happened throughout the rest of the area.
Also lots of old glide cracks were visible.
We ascended in a clear area to about 6600ft. and made the best of what we had. In fact the conditions were great (though limited!) and the skiing through the trees back to the road was a blast. The only issue there was that we skied a little low and had to cross the avi debris from the slide down low. (Even though we intentionally wanted to stay above it!)
My son seemed a little slow on the way up, but there was so much to see on this tour that I think that it kept his mind occupied. Once we ditched the skins he had tons of fun and finished pretty thrilled. Still waiting for that sunny tour where everything falls together, but this seemed to work out fine.
Alan
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