Home > Trip Reports > March 27 to April 1, Wallowas-Norway Basin

March 27 to April 1, Wallowas-Norway Basin

4/15/10
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Posted by blackdog102395 on 4/3/10 6:13am
We spent five great days of touring with Wallowa Alpine Huts in Norway Basin.   A full report would be an all evening, 12-pack fueled affair.  The condensed two cup coffee version goes like this:

Day 1: Firm, carvable crust. Fast!

Day 2: Camp Norway becomes Camp Graupel.  Who knew graupel made for such hero turns?  On the other hand, graupel is not so great for laying down a skin track.  Amazingly, the graupel manages to bond with firm surfaces.  Somehow, things get even faster. 

Day 3: Camp Graupel becomes Camp Powder.  The graupel provides a creamy,carvable base for the near blower pow.   Blue Creek and the Enchanted Forest were deep.  Nonstop grins from ear to ear.

Day 4:  More powder off the Big Ridge, Lap Dance and the newly named, Cackling Cliffs.  My face was cracked from smiling.

Day 5: The sun shines.  Two steep powder shots down Steal Your Face and a couple of cornice drops east off the Big Ridge.  Toured back to the car in disbelief as to how lucky we were to catch the fast, soft, powdery conditions.

The Guides did a great job of managing significant avalanche conditions.  The wind on Sunday and Monday were some of the strongest the guides had ever witnessed.  The yurt was shaking both nights; slopes were heavily wind loaded. Even though we were relegated to steep trees and low angle bowls, there were more than a few heart stopping moments and endless powdery lines.  Most days we covered about 5K of vert.

Here's a few pics.  No real action shots as we were too busy lapping up the powder.

http://picasaweb.google.com/118025853069449417238/Wallowas#
Hey Jake!  Looks like a great trip, especially the food.  Nice pictures.  Let me know when you want to go up St. Helens, and I'll head south to meet you.

Don, I'm in on St. Helens.  We are into the restricted permit season, which means we get the pleasure of paying $22 to make the climb.  I'll have to take a look at my wife's schedule and see if I can come up with a weekend over the next month or so.  Once I get it nailed down I'll send you a PM and we can go about getting our permits.

Thanks for leaving us some snow!  We were the group behind you, arriving on 4/1. 

...and really, thanks for the leftover IPA !!  ;)

Trees, you're welcome.  We barely put a dent in that thing.  With conditions being so good and the group willing to have at it from dawn till dusk, I'm afraid no one wanted to wake up in anything but prime shape.  Did it keep dumping after we left?

yeah it snowed everyday and we had another 12-18"  ;D

We didn't have much of it since we were out doing long days too!  Averaged over 4k a day.  The high winds and lots of new snow kept us from exploring the big boy terrain much, but we had great laps and runs everyday.  We had fresh trailbreaking everyday, and our previous days tracks were filled in by wind and snow each day!

We had hoped for some big line spring touring, but were ECSTATIC to have 4 days of low-angle powder skiing!



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march-27-to-april-1-wallowas-norway-basin
blackdog102395
2010-04-03 13:13:50