4/7/2010, McClellan's Butte: North Coulouir

Driving I-90 on the way home after a tour up to Pineapple Pass during the bluebird Wednesday of last week, our eyes fell on the N Coulouir of McClellan's Butte, and it looked to be in.  With the snow over the weekend, we figured the coverage would be good, and NWAC forecasts for the low elevations looked reasonable.  Departed Seattle at 0400, accessed forest service roads via exit 38, and succeeded in driving up to the turn for NFD 9021 around 1900 feet.  On route by 0515, we hiked NFD 9021 to hard left onto NFD 110 at 2100' ft and began the bootpack up through the woods at 2500', approx 1/4 mil from the hairpin turn (map at http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=47.414324,-121.621056&spn=0.036533,0.123596&t=p&z=14 ).  Snowcover was reasonable from halfway up NFD 110, but we delayed skinning until after the bootpack up onto the bench near the entrance to the coulouir at 3000'.  We left the road farther west than necessary, and this resulted in a bit of mucking around in the woods, as visibility was poor.  After 30 minutes, we made it out of the woods and into the chute around 0800. 

Debris from several naturally triggered releases in the past few days was obvious, and a quick pit showed about 12" of new dense but slabby powder over an older, hoar-frost topped layer with some shear susceptibility.  We decided to proceed with caution and began the skin up.  Progress was fairly rapid to 4300', where the chute steepens toward 50 degrees and the snow became deeper.  We traversed right below the north face, hoping to gain the west ridge and potentially skin to the summit.  The skinning became progressively harder in the narrowing chute, and attempts at bootpacking were futile.  A delicate traverse to the trees on the right side of the chute and a Cascade bush belay brought us to slopes back under 45 degrees, and another 20 minutes brought us to the west ridge.  Visibility was again poor, despite earlier periods in which the summit had come into view, with the occasional glimpse of Granite across the valley.  While we brought rope and tools, the lack of visibility and familiarity curtailed our plan to cross the summit and descend the east ridge to a steep chute into the top of the coulouir, so we pulled our skins at 5040' and dropped over the ridge around 1115, following our skin track through the fog. 

The warming day had turned the dense powder into setting Cascade concrete, but the descent proved enjoyable and the snow stable.  We continued straight down below the debris fan at the bottom of the coulouir, and coverage proved adequate to ski over the talus field, despite a few nicks to the bases of our skis.  A brief bootpack down through the trees brought us back to NFD 110, and we skied from there halfway back to NFD 9021, where snow coverage became inadequate and we hiked the last 3/4 of a mile back to the car.  Total of around 3100 vert, and a nice line checked off the list.  Pics added soon.