March 26, Mt Roosevelt Circumnavigation
3/15/11
WA Snoqualmie Pass
2857
5
Skiphotomatt, John and I left the upper lot of Alpental under lowering skies and lingering doubts about the weather and snow conditions. We were eying an ascent of Roosevelt and ski off its north side, but the visibility seemed marginal for a foray into new terrain. We decided that we should at least ski some north facing power, and made quick time up to the Chair Peak col and skied the N slope of Chair to Snow Lake on decent boot deep powder.
At the lake we took stock again of the situation. We started up towards Roosevelt and promptly lost visibility. We decided we didn't want to climb up Roosevelt with the pressure of a 2000 foot penalty run down breakable crust if we couldn't manage a possibly-corniced summit ridge to see the entrance to the N couloir. So we climbed another random chute just to ski something shaded, N of Melakwa Pass on the ridge connecting Roosevelt to Kaleetan. At the top we were surprised to see that the notch we had climbed was skiable on its southwest side. It took some map reading to determine we were looking over the Kaleetan Lake basin, which none of us had even seen in the winter, let alone entered.
Kaleetan Lake basin. How the heck did we get here?
Closer study of the map also revealed that we might actually be able to recross the ridge at another col and end up on the N cirque of Roosevelt if we skied into the basin and traveled north. But would the Kaleetan-Roosevelt col go through? The contours looked reasonable on the Kaleetan side, but were pretty tight on the Roosevelt side. But the day was still young, and there was only one way to tell. So we skied fairly atrocious breakable, took a high traverse, then climbed 600 feet up to the K-R col, unsure what we would find.
Sure enough, the spirits of the snoqualmie again granted us passage, and we skied down to the N cirque of Roosevelt, quite amazed at how we had ended up there. A quick skin up and ski down and we then followed a recent track back over the Wildcat-Snow divide and headed home. The sun and temps had even warmed solar slopes enough that we got to ski mashed potatoes rather than cardboard crust, so we were pretty stoked.
The K-R col.
Up the N couloir of Roosevelt.
The Oyster Couloir on Mt Wright.
Thanks for a great day, Matt and John, and many ideas of things to come just over the next ridge...
At the lake we took stock again of the situation. We started up towards Roosevelt and promptly lost visibility. We decided we didn't want to climb up Roosevelt with the pressure of a 2000 foot penalty run down breakable crust if we couldn't manage a possibly-corniced summit ridge to see the entrance to the N couloir. So we climbed another random chute just to ski something shaded, N of Melakwa Pass on the ridge connecting Roosevelt to Kaleetan. At the top we were surprised to see that the notch we had climbed was skiable on its southwest side. It took some map reading to determine we were looking over the Kaleetan Lake basin, which none of us had even seen in the winter, let alone entered.
Kaleetan Lake basin. How the heck did we get here?
Closer study of the map also revealed that we might actually be able to recross the ridge at another col and end up on the N cirque of Roosevelt if we skied into the basin and traveled north. But would the Kaleetan-Roosevelt col go through? The contours looked reasonable on the Kaleetan side, but were pretty tight on the Roosevelt side. But the day was still young, and there was only one way to tell. So we skied fairly atrocious breakable, took a high traverse, then climbed 600 feet up to the K-R col, unsure what we would find.
Sure enough, the spirits of the snoqualmie again granted us passage, and we skied down to the N cirque of Roosevelt, quite amazed at how we had ended up there. A quick skin up and ski down and we then followed a recent track back over the Wildcat-Snow divide and headed home. The sun and temps had even warmed solar slopes enough that we got to ski mashed potatoes rather than cardboard crust, so we were pretty stoked.
The K-R col.
Up the N couloir of Roosevelt.
The Oyster Couloir on Mt Wright.
Thanks for a great day, Matt and John, and many ideas of things to come just over the next ridge...
Great TR. It's really enjoyable to "find" a new route/terrain near familiar topography. As the days get longer there are more opportunities to "checkout" what's over the next ridgeline.
Cool TR. Fun to see a different route in a popular area. For clarification, is the feature you refer to as the Kaleetan-Roosevelt col near either of the pins on this map?
Thanks!
Thanks!
We used (A) to exit the Kaleetan Lake basin (and which I referred to as the K-R col, which now I realize is a bit of a misnomer--it's more like the Roosevelt-Caroline Col). We entered the Kaleetan Lake basin via a col a little bit north of (B). It looks like there were other options that work for both (A) and (B), with various additional amounts of spice at the top.
Nice picture of the Oyster Couloir--I was wondering if it had a name. I saw that Friday when we did a similar trip up Roosevelt and ticked the Oyster off today (TR coming).
Nice work guys! Wish I could have made it.
I will have to check that route out - there's more adventure in our backyard than you'd think sometimes.
I will have to check that route out - there's more adventure in our backyard than you'd think sometimes.
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