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March 29 Quartz Creek

3/15/09
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Posted by samoon on 3/31/09 11:54am
Quartz creek is a wonderful North facing creek drainage which sits opposite of the Excelsior slide path and lies just East of "sled neck country" in the wilderness.  The area is known for being plagued by the perils of sledders infringing upon the boundaries of the wilderness. Nevertheless, this area is a worthy location for a late winter or early spring outing. The area would appear to have limitless potential, especially if you don't mind the stray sledder of two.
A tale of two skiers!
One likes short  radius powder turns, one likes large radius turns.
Neither are wrong and both leave beautiful tracks.
I like it that every skier has his/her own path! Or maybe one was a snowboarder?
Neat photo and area.
thanks for sharing it.

Nice pictures! Not being familiar with the area you're talking about I did a look up with NG Topo maps.  Turns out there is an Excelsor Mt (4832ft) & Excelsor Peak (5699ft) both with different Quartz Creeks coming out the north side - amazing coincidence. One is in the Monte Cristo area and the other nearer Baker. My guess is you're referring to one north of Hwy 542, on the way to Mt Baker?

Samoon, I remember being out there the 28th and 29th!!!
Scotsman, I'll claim the big skier tracks! 
Russ, It is the Baker area. What a coincidence!
Great storm day location as well. The trees are great!
Sleds required, or else a very long approach. I guess one could come up from 542, but you would start at 1800' elevation.

Yes, you can start from 542 (a small parking lot on the left/north side of 542, I think the label is Excelsior Ridge Trail), and it is 2800' up through the trees to the alpine if you approximately follow the summer trail.  I think it would be fine with enough snow, it was not a good route this year.  Just west of the summer train there is a gully that might be a nice run back down much of the way if sufficiently filled in (this year it has not been from what Mosetick and I saw a few weeks ago).

Samoon, I am impressed!  Thanks for this trip report.  This looks like a lot of fun.  Travertine and I were short on time so we did not get to do any exploring when up in this area recently.  Your trip report gives me a lot of hope!  Do you have to skin back up to the top of the ridge from approx. the same area you ski down, or is their a way back out to the highway somewhere without having to skin twice?

Sleds required, or else a very long approach. I guess one could come up from 542, but you would start at 1800' elevation.

As Toby T had eluded to....we had the use of sleds and accessed this area from the Canyon Creek side, but I do feel that it would be feasible to manage this with a hike/ski approach from the highway. A worthy tour for a few days might be to hike up Church and tour along the crest to Welcome Pass and then on to Yellow Aster Butte....and then maybe exit on the Twin Lakes Road.  The snow on the south side was good, but had a little sun crust.

Here's what things looked like headed down towards the Excelsior slide path.


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samoon
2009-03-31 18:54:25