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Blue Lake cirque, American Alps

12/15/08
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Posted by Kyle Miller on 12/10/08 7:16am
Desperate for Pow Tabski and myself made a early departure from Seattle to make it up to Washington pass with the early morning sun.

The storm that hit sunday reaped havoc on the North Cascade highway leaving us both sketched and stoked on what was to come. We were able to skin from the car up to the lake in less then a hour as we watched the visability slowly deteriorate.

We skinned up the basin aways and found a nice Southern face with no rocks poking out of the snowpack so we did a quick warm up run
then turned our attention to this beast

The crux looked small so we climbed up the side of the Apron to get a better look and decided to go for it.
Tabski Bootpacking up the chute

Tabski slaying the line

It was steep and skinny but managable with nice stable pow, sadly the apron was the one area all day that I hit a rock.

After that we loaded up on Calories and hit are final line of the day which was the same chute Scott and myself did a week earlier

We summited around 4 to limited visablitiy but got some of the best turns of the day on the top

The worst turns of the day were on the chutes apron as it was littered with rubble under six inches of fresh.

While Climbing there were spots were the snow was waist deep it looks like highway 20 will be closing any day know.
Way to get the last of that area for a while...  I'm jealous.

Nice way to get some!  That chute looks mighty slim.

Nice shots Kyle.
Looked like a good time, hopefully you will be able to stay closer to home soon!

Nice TR! way to get the early stoke.  Looks like we are finally getting a bit of winter!  maybe Brand X before New Years?

Good stoke with limited coverage!

When we were up there after Thanksgiving there was water-ice visible in that chute; filled in, it looks super now.  :)

Thanks for all the kind comments. Hopefully the road will open again next week so some more TAYers can take advantage of the amazing terrain.
Joeda have a great trip to Aly im glad crystal is opening but Im still sketchy about the low snowpack.
Telemack when we were booting up the chute we could feel the ice underneath but it made for easy travel compared to the waist deep in the apron which had a system
1. Brush off new snow for next step
2. Compress area with knee
3. put foot in position
then repeat...
it was slow traveling to say the least

Definition of wishful thinking-"Now that DOT has screwed the weekend plans for Rainy I'm hoping against logic they'll re-open 20 Monday". Way to get likely last tracks for the season, well played boys!

author=Kyle Miller link=topic=11450.msg47612#msg47612 date=1229011660]
Thanks for all the kind comments. Hopefully the road will open again next week so some more TAYers can take advantage of the amazing terrain.
Joeda have a great trip to Aly im glad crystal is opening but Im still sketchy about the low snowpack.
Telemack when we were booting up the chute we could feel the ice underneath but it made for easy travel compared to the waist deep in the apron which had a system
1. Brush off new snow for next step
2. Compress area with knee
3. put foot in position
then repeat...
it was slow traveling to say the least

New travel mode:  "Kneepacking"! 8)

Good getting out with you Kyle! Hope to meet more of you guys and gals during the winter (I just moved up from Salt Lake). I posted a short video at vimeo.com called "A Poor Start to the Season?"
link

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blue-lake-cirque-american-alps
Kyle Miller
2008-12-10 15:16:15