April 30, 2009, Backbone Traverse
4/30/09
1768
1
Linden and I skied from eldorado to little devil peak along the backbone ridge thursday. We got the idea from Lowell Skoogs website (http://alpenglow.org/) where he describes a couple ski trips along the backbone.
We camped at the trailhead and got an early start up eldorado creek. The trail was mostly bare to the bottom of the talus fields (which are covered, but probably wont be for long).
We skied off the summit of Eldo on a mixture of smooth dust on crust and chattery ice. We used the higher of the two notches north of dorado needle to cross from the mcallister glacier to the backbone ridge. A 3 shrund had opened up below the east side of this crossing but we were able to climb/wallow over awkwardly over it. It also looked like you could climb to the ridge further south and traverse steep snow into this crossing though it is getting thin. We explored the craggy backbone ridge and found more good turns on shallow corn or powder depending on aspect. The fishscaled skis and 3pins were perfect for the rolling glacier and ridge sections of this tour. With tired legs we cut as high a traverse as possible across the north side of the bat and skinned to the summit of Little Devil Peak.
Looking back from little devil across the backbone ridge to eldorado:
Wed been worried about soft snow on the south faces but some clouds rolled in early afternoon and we skied great corn down to treeline, arriving at monogram lake around 5:00. Id already started thinking about beers at Skidders, but we got carried away skiing the perfectly spaced old growth and by the time we looked up we were on the wrong (west) side of lookout creek which had dived into an impassable ravine. Not wanting to backtrack we figured we could bushwack out the ridge to the road. Fools! When dark fell we were in some pretty cliffy going and didnt feel good about continuing by headlamp. We built a fire on some nice ledges and waited for morning when we were able to find a weakness in the ravine and pick up the trail on the east side. We were surprised to make the road in only 45 minutes, but not complaining. Kinda rugged ending to an otherwise very flowy tour but so it goes.
This is a great ski though fair warning that the mcallister crossing should only get sportier in late season. Thanks Lowell for sharing info on this and other cascade high routes. We spent most of the day feeling very lucky to be in the alpine again. More pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/ebensargent/Backbone02#
We camped at the trailhead and got an early start up eldorado creek. The trail was mostly bare to the bottom of the talus fields (which are covered, but probably wont be for long).
We skied off the summit of Eldo on a mixture of smooth dust on crust and chattery ice. We used the higher of the two notches north of dorado needle to cross from the mcallister glacier to the backbone ridge. A 3 shrund had opened up below the east side of this crossing but we were able to climb/wallow over awkwardly over it. It also looked like you could climb to the ridge further south and traverse steep snow into this crossing though it is getting thin. We explored the craggy backbone ridge and found more good turns on shallow corn or powder depending on aspect. The fishscaled skis and 3pins were perfect for the rolling glacier and ridge sections of this tour. With tired legs we cut as high a traverse as possible across the north side of the bat and skinned to the summit of Little Devil Peak.
Looking back from little devil across the backbone ridge to eldorado:
Wed been worried about soft snow on the south faces but some clouds rolled in early afternoon and we skied great corn down to treeline, arriving at monogram lake around 5:00. Id already started thinking about beers at Skidders, but we got carried away skiing the perfectly spaced old growth and by the time we looked up we were on the wrong (west) side of lookout creek which had dived into an impassable ravine. Not wanting to backtrack we figured we could bushwack out the ridge to the road. Fools! When dark fell we were in some pretty cliffy going and didnt feel good about continuing by headlamp. We built a fire on some nice ledges and waited for morning when we were able to find a weakness in the ravine and pick up the trail on the east side. We were surprised to make the road in only 45 minutes, but not complaining. Kinda rugged ending to an otherwise very flowy tour but so it goes.
This is a great ski though fair warning that the mcallister crossing should only get sportier in late season. Thanks Lowell for sharing info on this and other cascade high routes. We spent most of the day feeling very lucky to be in the alpine again. More pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/ebensargent/Backbone02#
Wow, it sounds like you really motored. I would have thought it better to wait a little later in the season, but I guess the clouds kept the snow from getting too soft. Congrats on a great trip!
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