April 25, 2010, Blue Copper Wallaby Kangaroo Tour

Enjoyed a great day out in the Washington Pass area on Sunday with Erik Svege with cameos from some other friends.  We spent the night on the east side of Washington Pass on Saturday night and got an early start on Sunday.  We were skinning out of the Blue Lake trailhead at 4:45am.  The travel was pretty good with 4 inches of fluff on top of edge-able crust and we made pretty good time to the Blue Lake Col.  We were fortunate to be the first to ski the new snow on the Southeast face down to the lake below Copper Pass.  It was smooth and beautiful in the sunrise.  From there we skinned and booted up the west shoulder of Copper Peak heading just south of the summit in order to access the Maple Leaf Couloir which dissects the east face of Copper Peak.  This is where the real fun started.  We found the entrance blocked by a 10' vertical drop onto apparent hardpack in the long steep couloir below.  After some debate we decided to break out the shovels and carve in some steps that would get us to a safe dropping height.  30 minutes and a short drop to firm snow later we were in the couloir.  It skied pretty firmly with frozen debris in places, but it's always enjoyable to ski such an aesthetic line.

From the bottom of the Maple Leaf we turned to the North and climbed the south face of Wallaby Peak.  The firm snow under the new dusting provided great stability and allowed us to travel very directly to our objective just east of the summit, a line I've hear referred to as Life is Good couloir.  While still sporty, the entrance to this line provided a small steep ramp to the side of the large cornice that closed off the rest of the line.  Conditions in the chute varied from powder to fast moving sluff to crusty debris.  More good than bad.

At the bottom we made another quick transition to climb the south facing slope to the west of the Mushroom Tower which put us on top of an hour glass shaped line called the Beer Bong.  The snow in the upper part was the best of the day, 8+" of wind deposited powder.  The second half looked just as debris ridden as anything we had seen so we opted for an alternate route down a pillowed shoulder.  Yummy.  The creamed corn in the drainage below was incredible and we skied it until we ran out of open lanes. 

Finally having dealt with all of the technical parts of the tour we broke for lunch on a giant boulder and took some time to enjoy the immense beauty of the surroundings.  Our final push up to the top of Kangaroo Ridge was made infinitely easier by the track that our friends Matt and Megan had put in an hour before.  Thanks guys!  From the top of Kangaroo we skied the standard route on pleasantly smooth snow with a modest suction factor in the bottom half.  The cruise out to the hairpin was enjoyable and laden with smiling skiers.  And to put icing on the cake, our friend John who had started the tour with us and then opted to ski smooth powder instead of icy steeps (probably a great call) was waiting at the hairpin with our truck providing an easy round trip for us and some other lucky skiers.  All told about 8k of climbing and 5 descents in a backcountry paradise.  Gotta love HWY 20!