Home > Trip Reports > Silver Star Mountain, N. Cascades, May 6/7, 2010

Silver Star Mountain, N. Cascades, May 6/7, 2010

5/15/10
WA Cascades East Slopes North
2917
4
Posted by ebeam on 5/9/10 11:20am
Wow €“ having never been here before I was impressed with the interesting/varied terrain and rugged beauty of the mountains in this area €“ especially the rock. We also happened to hit it just right €“sunny much of the time (snow flurries were in the forecast), 1-2 feet of powder up high, and no one else around.

Don, Chuck, and I left the car in the afternoon in order to camp at the toe of the glacier area. It was winter up there with fresh light snow from the day before and temps dipping into the mid-teens overnight. The next day we awoke to clear sky, but clouds soon started swirling in and out. Climbing by the different rock walls with varied lighting and snow sparkling was impressive. Our progress was slow due to breaking trail through the deep snow, especially on some of the steeper pitches. It was foggy by the time we reached the pass at 8,600ft between the east and west summits so we decided against doing the scramble to the top.

The first pitch down was brialle-like, but after that visibility improved and patches of sun even poked through. We had hero powder from the pass to our camp at 6,300 ft. Below camp was variable €“ pockets of powder, death crust, and wet fresh snow €“ down to the flats starting at about 4,900 ft. We knew the skiing up high would be good, but some pitches in this middle area were really fun too €“ skiing through larch glades, steeper forest, and large talus blocks. Below 4,900 ft, the crust, when present, was supportable or the snow type finally fit the season: corn. The last 1,500 ft down through the forest was surprisingly fun too €“ sort of like doing a puzzle €“ stringing the patches together and hoping over small logs. We were able to ski to road (3,400 ft), but just barely.

We were wondering why you skied so close to your skintrack off the saddle (skied Silver Star yesterday). Thanks for leaving plenty of fresh real estate! What a weekend of smokey powder and blue bird skies (what month is it again?)...

and thanks for the skintrack!

ski close to skin track ...

I'd like to say we were just conserving scarce resources, but really we could see - as you guessed.

Glad someone else benefited from the skin track. What a May so far.

Nice job! What a cool route. I think of it as a very accesible yet epic-feeling day tour. I'm sure that the struggle to break trail was compensated for by the joy of feeling that you had the mountain to yourselves.

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silver-star-mountain-n-cascades-may-6-7-2010
ebeam
2010-05-09 18:20:41