April 5, 2009, Cannon Mnt and Couloir

Inspired by John, Tom, and Kyle's effort a couple of weeks before and with beta from John on where to park the car, cross the river, etc we headed out to find out the reason why the drainage was named Rat Creek.  Tobae, Khahn, Tim and I skied at Stevens on Saturday, got a sunburn, and found excellent powder on the N sides that had no sun.  Headed to Leavenworth and bivied after burgers at Gustav's ......... in a motel -;)  Left the car a little after 5 am, crossed the river and hiked to Rat creek.  Followed drainage straight up pretty much until first bench where we were able to put our skis on and thread a fine line between big boulders, downed threes and cliff bands.  Can imagine this to be not so pleasant without snow.  Nice fresh bear tracks in the snow.  I managed to lead us a little too far to the left of the trainage (hey it looked more open), but a little monkey business got us back on track. 
The sun was out in full force and it was freaking hot and it took a major toll on our progress.  After many hours we were happy to see Coney Lake, things just seem farther when you are tired, go figure.  At Coney Lake there are 3 prominent couloirs that you can travel to reach the ridge line to Cannon Mnt.  The wind was loading the two right gulleys up pretty good and we decided on the left gulley as it did not have a cornice, terrain was smaller, and fetch area also smaller.  Postholing up was a chore, new snow and wind loaded snow seemed to have bonded very well to the underlying crust.  At the top of the gulley there is about 400 feet or so to the top of Cannon and the views were just incredible.  My gosh this is incredible country that we never could tire of.  Goat tracks abound, but no sign of our hairy friends.
Quick scramble to the top of the rock, a little weird in teleboots, and then for the ski down.  Couloir to Coney Lake was good fun, rising traverse from the outlet of the lake brought us too high above Cannon Couloir, but a little downhill traversing got us to the entrance.  The top part of the couloir is melted out, but we were able to enter about 50' below on skiers left.  Nice turns down the couloir, snow not bad at all.  Slight crust at the apron and below, but once out in the sun again, Tobae got her True Corn on the soft butter turns down to Mountaineers Creek.  Crossing of the creek is very simple if you don't care to stay dry ;-)  We could ski the road except a few short ski carries back to the car at the bridge.  Long day, but oh so beautiful terrain.