June 27, 2004, Easton Glacier

Last weekend I threw out my back, so I've been well-behaved all week: sedate, calm, adequately-rested and, uh, medicated.  By yesterday, I was feeling quite a bit better, so I thought I'd head out and road test my lumbar spine on Sunday.  A quick, half-day trip in the meadows along the Railroad Grade, I thought; easy pitches, nice scenery, soft sunlight....

Well, of course all of these were present in abundance.  The Schreiber's Meadow trailhead is at about 3300 feet, and currently features both wildflowers and remnant patches of snow.  At 4500 feet, snowcover becomes continuous.  Above 6000 feet or so, the recent snowfalls have morphed into clean, white corn, and although the surface was still somewhat stiff as I climbed, I knew that if I waited around long enough there'd be some fine skiing.  While waiting around, of course, it seemed reasonable to climb some more; as I got higher, the corn hadn't thawed, so I climbed higher still, chugging uphill steadily in the sun, stripped to a tank top and lathered with sunscreen.  Before long I was winding my way between seracs and crevasses at seven, then eight thousand feet, then nine.  Every so often, miserable-looking climbers passed on their way downhill, slipping and sliding and tripping over their ropes.  A few allowed as how travel had been easier before the snow softened.  I just smirked secretly.  It was 12:30 by the time I judged the corn ready, so I turned around at about 9800 feet (just above the entrance to the crater), ate a pair of Fig Newtons for energy, and started down.  

The first couple of thousand feet were absolutely stunning: perfectly smooth, perfectly white, with one to two inches of perfectly-conceived corn over a perfectly-consolidated base.  I could do no wrong, no matter what I tried:  telemarks, parallels (as it happens, I do not know how to turn in parallel, but these worked flawlessly nonetheless), monomarks, fakeamarks, reversamarks.  This snow was so perfect in all respects that, despite my weariness, I didn't even get tired skiing; it was that effortless.   It's been at least a couple of years since I found better spring snow than this.  By comparison, the next couple of thousand feet were merely outstanding, while the final thousand clocked in no better than delightful.  So entranced was I at this downhill dance that I dropped into the wrong drainage entirely (this despite perfect visibility and familiarity with the route), adding a side-trip to Mazama Park on the other side of Baker Pass to my journey.

I would add only a word of caution about crevasse hazards and this recent snowfall: a week and a half ago, a lot of slots were thinly bridged by fresh snow.  Many of these now seem to have reopened, but there are presumably more lurking, and there are certainly more forming. I sat for a bit at 7000 feet to change out of my trail shoes and into ski boots, during which I watched a hairline extension of an obvious crevasse.  It had not been there earlier in the day (it ran right through several sets of footprints), and during the 15 minutes I sat there it doubled in size from an eighth to a quarter of an inch; that's a half-inch an hour, potentially a foot of movement in a day.  

For the coming week:  stable weather; perfectly smooth snow above six or seven thousand feet; adequate snowbridges on the glaciers; abundant bliss for them that's getting their share.

Enjoy,

Mark