December 24, 2004, toward Big Jim Mountain

Given the widespread reports of less than optimal snow, Matt and I decided to do see how far we could get toward Big Jim Mountain, carrying skis just in case we got lucky. The bottom line: we didn't get very lucky.

Our luck started failing right after we turned off Highway 2 and started up the Hatchery Creek road. The car was (mostly) just clearing the very hard frozen snow between the tire tracks when we got onto a steeper section with just ice in the tracks. With all four wheels locked, the car slowly slid back down the hill - not a nice feeling. We put on the chains and made it a little farther (1800'), but didn't want to risk any more of that kind of excitement, so we had to skin the ~2 miles to the trailhead, where there was 6-10' of snow, but only in the open. We then hiked the trail (Hatchery Creek trail), which varied from snow in open areas to bare under trees, with a lot of areas where water had pooled and then frozen solid, making the hiking tricky (and even worse on the way down). At about 5200' the trees were opening up and the snow a little deeper in the open, so we started skinning again, only to have to skin across more bare or ice patches.

At a little saddle around 5400', Matt decided he'd had enough fun going up, so he got in one turn, skins on, and turned back to enjoy the icy fun on the hike down. I wanted to get to the ridge top and see what the terrain looked like, so I kept skinning up. The coverage slowly got better and the trees more open, but above 5800' there started to be a breakable crust. I turned around at a 6296' bump, and started my "run" back down. This consisted of a variety of different types of turns: about 50% Z-turns (ie. kick) because of lack space to turn and stay on snow and/or nasty breakable crust, with the rest a mix of snowplow, tele, and parallel. I kept skis on down to about 5200', then it was "hike fast so Matt won't have to wait too long but don't get killed on the icy trail". Back at the trailhead, I knew it was foolhardy to try to ski the road because it consisted of very hard breakable crust marred by tire tracks - no place to reliably turn and way too fast to not turn. So, I tried it anyway and got about half way around the first hairpin before convincing myself that skiing the road really wasn't a good idea. I reached the car about 10 minutes after Matt did, so at least something worked out well on this trip.

I think we must have accumulated enough torture points on this trip to make up for all of the good skiing last summer and fall! My shoulders, arms, legs, and knees were more sore than they have been in years. There is nice touring terrain in this area, though, and we'll hope to have better luck with the conditions next time.