Home > Trip Reports > March 7, 2010, Lichtenberg 5844', McCausland 5747'

March 7, 2010, Lichtenberg 5844', McCausland 5747'

3/7/10
WA Stevens Pass
2463
4
Posted by John Morrow on 3/7/10 11:17am
Barb and Jim drove up from the west side and met up with Ellie, Margy, Pico and I at Yodelin for a wonderful day of corn skiing.  It, honestly, was a bit of a surprise to me, but the predicted front with the cooler air stayed off for the entire day.
For those who are curious of conditions we never strayed off SW through SE facing slopes.  The overnight freeze was moderately thick, I am guessing about three inches or so.  By the time we skinned up the south side of Lichtenberg we had about of an inch of thaw and followed a nice skin track placed by Anita and her gang of six.  We all converged on the summit and had a great run on the firm smooth corn, with the inch or more of thaw, to about 4600 feet.  Big, big, smiles!
We thought we might have just lost the opportunity for more good skiing due to the heat of the sun so decided to tour over to Mt McCausland and investigate its multiple aspects for a second run.  After a nice break on the top we tried a new line (for us) directly south to the meadows behind Lake Valhalla.   It was a fun little exploration for us with great smooth corn on the top 400 vertical, a bit of steep and chunked mush trough the rocky bands, and then a pleasant finish down to the lake.
From the lake it was more of the mix: a little bit of mush and/or corn through the open baby trees of the Lichtrnberg south side and then a great finish on velvety corn in the gentle avy runouts to the valley floor.  At this point there was nothing but HUGE smiles and hoots and hollars about a very fun day in the mountains with the perfect crew.
By crossing Nason Creek on a log at 3600 feet, and staying along the creek until right at the base of the cabins at the west end of the Yodelin Road, we were able to ski downhill all the way out.  That allowed us to miss the weird tree well traverses at the road altitude on the south side of the drainage.  A quick boot pack up 100 feet put us right back on the road.  This is definitely my approach route from here on out!
Thanks everyone for such a great day!
A couple pics will follow later unless other folks have ones they like...

Thanks again, John, for putting this together.  A great trip with a delightful group!

Beautiful -- nice work John and company.

Nice TR, thanks for the update, been wondering about that trip.

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march-7-2010-lichtenberg-5844-mccausland-5747
John Morrow
2010-03-07 19:17:06