Home > Trip Reports > Dec 12, 2009, Painted Couloir (Red Mt)

Dec 12, 2009, Painted Couloir (Red Mt)

12/12/09
WA Snoqualmie Pass
6047
7
Posted by trees4me on 12/14/09 1:37am
I overcame last weekend's lack of motivation and ventured out on Saturday.  Hoping to catch the last day of the beautiful dry weather, with low avy danger, I decided to try somewhere new...

So after looking around, and running through numerous possibilites, I decided to go for Painted (Red on some maps) Mt.  I'd seen a line here in the summer from trips to Sloan and Lost Creek Ridge, that I'd wanted to ski for the last several years...  Normal partners were unavailable, so I was solo this time.

Started at the NF Sauk TH at 2000', was hoping for snow... found it at about 3600'!  Ski cramponed from there more or less following the ridge to the top.

Finally above treeline, easy skinning from 5800' to top.


At the top (6975'), looking north towards north summit.  Plan is to ski the couloir in between... the only recon was a view from Sloan Peak 6 months ago...



There is a couloir here, and it is SWEEET!  Not very narrow, steepest sections were about 40ish deg (+/-5).


Part way down, the monarch of Sloan in the distance.


Looking back up at the run, before finishing skiing to Ruby Lake.
Sweet!  I love that area -- way to get some goods in while the high pressure hangs around.

What were the snow conditions like?  Were you skiing a glittering layer of surface hoar?

Below treeline it was hard pock-marked old snow...
Above treeline there was 1-3" of light fluff on top of a crust (breakable at times) with another unbreakable crust at 5-6" down.  The couloir had blown in on the skiers left (south) side and made for sweet turns.  Dry sluffs of the top layer required a minor amount of management...

Beautiful!  I have a great look at that couloir from part way up Spring Mtn to the west.  Was your route trail 651 and then up the SW ridge to the top?

Boot -  Yeah, I was lucky to have that trail since the snowline was so high.  Above snowline I basically followed the summer climbing route as there were occasional pink flags.
Great views of Spring Mt and Pugh.  Did you experience similar snow levels on Spring?  I considered going up the trail to Bingley Gap...

Nice one! Way to get it while its there.

trees4me:  I added pic above.  It was actually last May that I was up there.  The couloir definitely caught my eye ;).  Did you get a good shot of Glacier from top of Painted?

That's a great shot of it Boot, thanks!

Unfortunately, I could see more of the top of Baker than of Glacier!!!!  The top was in a cloud, but I could see the flanks and all around from Pugh to Lost Cr Ridge to Black Mt to White Mt to Indian Head...

Here's a panorama looking towards GP (on left) and around to the SE towards Indian Head (on right).


Reply to this TR

6875
dec-12-2009-painted-couloir-red-mt
trees4me
2009-12-14 09:37:45