July 8, 2008, Heliotrope Ridge

Having skied and hiked this area many times in the past, I felt that this would be a great day trip for my son and I.  It is hard to believe that we pulled this off considering how slow we moved on the trail portion of the trip.  I should have read more closely the last post by Stewie and Scotsman's follow-up on trail conditions!  First off, that "log of death" almost stopped me cold!  Needing plenty of coffee to make the 3hr drive up, meant that my legs were all jittery to begin with, and I had to back off that thing!  After Nick took the opportunity to use the facilities, I felt better and we proceeded, but I normally drink only decaf and that coffee made my legs behave as if they were having and out of body experience.  (Much better on the way down!)  After that, the occasional diversion from a blown down tree every few hundred yards slowed us a bit, but the big blowdowns near the end of the trail were very disheartening for my son and I.  We had a lunch just before the continuous snow and that really seemed to pump energy into Nick.  (I need to realize that while I have almost endless reserves of stored onboard energy  ;), my kid is very lean and easily runs low without constant stoking.)  Once we started booting up, elevation came fast and so did spirits.
Taking advantage of the spectacular weather, we found ourselves on ideal snow for bootpacking and booted from 4800ft. up to 5900ft. 

Nick booting on up just above the lower snowfields


This made my son ask why it was that we had come all this way with skins on skis only to carry them all the way to the top.  No matter, the terrain mellowed out and at 5900ft skiing became more efficient so we donned skis and headed up on a direct heading to the intersection point of Heliotrope and Marmot Ridges (at least as described on some maps).  Prior to hitting the steep slopes of that point, we corkscrewed slowly around the back of another high ridge point where eventually the terrain leveled a bit and then we stopped. 

Nice skinning terrain on the glacier on up to our high point.


The descent began down the front of this 1000ft. dome of perfect corn snow on minimal suncup.  I think the snowpack up there has been freezing well  with these clear nights and even with a rest at the top and a late departure from the top, we hit ideal conditions with only the top couple inches thawed.

Nick heading down that lower snowfield section just prior to heading into the trees below.


This was Nick's first real boot pack, so somewhat unique to his experience.  However he got off easy, because on the transition from booting to skinning at 5900ft I let him put his helmet on and we left his pack at the bottom of that slope.

Upon ascent through the blowdown, I had almost given up on continuing.  I am glad we persisted, because we were rewarded with a great experience above the trail with well over 2000ft of great skiing, and, hey, we were only going to have to go down through horror show of a trail anyway!  I can't believe that two years ago I had taken my kids (with young daughter) up that trail. 

Alan