April 17, 2011, ONP, Hurricane Ridge
4/17/11
WA Olympics
5085
4
After a week of almost circumnavigating the US in a combination of planes, trains and automobiles, the lure of a day of human powered travel in the Olympics was too much to resist.
With no illusions of any spectacular conditions, Jan, Jeff and I headed up the well set skin track on "Maggies Nose". The views deep into the Olympics were beautiful and refreshing. Our first run down the north facing "Bowling Alley" was not encouraging. After dropping to the road, we elected to climb back to the ridge line and wait for the sun to work it's magic on the more southerly facing aspects of "Maggies Wrinkles". After a leisurely break at the ridge line, we enjoyed some much softer and relaxing turns on our ski back to the car.
The building storm clouds on several aspects encouraged us to retreat to sea level and complete some more mundane tasks.
Here are a few pictures and a link to some more: https://picasaweb.google.com/GaryJanH/20110417Maggies?authkey=Gv1sRgCKqQtdH0hJ7SAQ#
1. The Bailey Range from the Ridge.
2. Jan Dropping into the Bowling Alley
3. Storm clouds building
Included in the photo link are a few pictures of a ski area near Gatlinburg, TN I visited during my trip last week. This privately owned area is above Gatlinburg and near the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. There is a tram which runs from Gatlinburg to the base of the ski area. The area (named "Ober Gatlinburg") operates year round offering a variety of visitor activities. It was a stark contrast to the 150 +" of snow at Hurricane Ridge. :)
Gary
With no illusions of any spectacular conditions, Jan, Jeff and I headed up the well set skin track on "Maggies Nose". The views deep into the Olympics were beautiful and refreshing. Our first run down the north facing "Bowling Alley" was not encouraging. After dropping to the road, we elected to climb back to the ridge line and wait for the sun to work it's magic on the more southerly facing aspects of "Maggies Wrinkles". After a leisurely break at the ridge line, we enjoyed some much softer and relaxing turns on our ski back to the car.
The building storm clouds on several aspects encouraged us to retreat to sea level and complete some more mundane tasks.
Here are a few pictures and a link to some more: https://picasaweb.google.com/GaryJanH/20110417Maggies?authkey=Gv1sRgCKqQtdH0hJ7SAQ#
1. The Bailey Range from the Ridge.
2. Jan Dropping into the Bowling Alley
3. Storm clouds building
Included in the photo link are a few pictures of a ski area near Gatlinburg, TN I visited during my trip last week. This privately owned area is above Gatlinburg and near the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. There is a tram which runs from Gatlinburg to the base of the ski area. The area (named "Ober Gatlinburg") operates year round offering a variety of visitor activities. It was a stark contrast to the 150 +" of snow at Hurricane Ridge. :)
Gary
Welcome back and thanks for the report.
Your Bailey pics capture my attention once again. Carrie looks sooooo good.
Your Bailey pics capture my attention once again. Carrie looks sooooo good.
And I thought those three shots were from the Tennesse Alps! ::) ;) ::)
author=telemack link=topic=20568.msg87622#msg87622 date=1303101248]
And I thought those three shots were from the Tennesse Alps! ::) ;) ::)
Wishful thinking Mack,
author=Snow Bell link=topic=20568.msg87618#msg87618 date=1303100450]
Your Bailey pics capture my attention once again. Carrie looks sooooo good.
Yes it does Joe ......................
Gary
Hi Gary;
Looks you all had a good day and your photos are great! I was up in that exact area on Saturday, and did three laps. I don't know the names of the runs, but roughly I did two runs off the top of the 2nd hump away from parking lot down to the road, and one down off the ridge perhaps a 20 min further skin toward mt. Angeles.
i put in a skin track from the road back up to the 2nd hump; in that area, at about 3pm, the snow was soft heavy untracked with some windblown, quite pleasant on fat skis.
The 3rd run, down through the trees closer to mt. Angeles (maggies?), was at about 4pm, and had a bit of a crust on it already from the lowering temps. I ran into a party of six or so on the skin out, who had put in a nice track back up in that area.
The snowpack seemed overall stable on the more moderate pitches, which most are out there. The very steep stuff looked quite a bit less stable in spring sun.
All aspects seemed to have had enough sun to crust up at 5300 feet, making for highly variable crud skiing. I wonder how long till we corn up to a predictable surface up there, or what is on the back side of mt angeles?
Ran into and skied a run with a guy you know, George, and his partner.
Happy touring!
Looks you all had a good day and your photos are great! I was up in that exact area on Saturday, and did three laps. I don't know the names of the runs, but roughly I did two runs off the top of the 2nd hump away from parking lot down to the road, and one down off the ridge perhaps a 20 min further skin toward mt. Angeles.
i put in a skin track from the road back up to the 2nd hump; in that area, at about 3pm, the snow was soft heavy untracked with some windblown, quite pleasant on fat skis.
The 3rd run, down through the trees closer to mt. Angeles (maggies?), was at about 4pm, and had a bit of a crust on it already from the lowering temps. I ran into a party of six or so on the skin out, who had put in a nice track back up in that area.
The snowpack seemed overall stable on the more moderate pitches, which most are out there. The very steep stuff looked quite a bit less stable in spring sun.
All aspects seemed to have had enough sun to crust up at 5300 feet, making for highly variable crud skiing. I wonder how long till we corn up to a predictable surface up there, or what is on the back side of mt angeles?
Ran into and skied a run with a guy you know, George, and his partner.
Happy touring!
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