June 11, 2011, Teanaway - Longs/Ingalls Pass Area

Pictures at https://picasaweb.google.com/mlangley7019/20110611Teanaway?authkey=Gv1sRgCO-GpuOkyerOvQE&feat=directlink .

Jonathan and I both needed to get out of the cage breath some fresh air and get some exercise. We also each needed one more patrol day to fulfill my annual requirement for Cascade Backcountry Ski Patrol, so we headed for the Teanaway on Friday evening and camped. We were joined by patrol candidates Sean and Aaron.

Saturday morning we got a leisurely 7:30 start from the car about 1/2 mile short of the Ingalls TH. The road was actually in good shape except for one substantial avalanche-deposited snow bank and accompanying tree debris.

Under blue skies and cool temps we hiked up to about the divergence of the Ingalls Pass and Longs Pass trails at about 5400 ft where we put on skins and moved on firm snow that had frozen nicely overnight. We made a mistake, traversing too high toward Ingalls and getting stymied by a rocky gulch. Rather than lose elevation we decided to head on up to the ridge between Longs and Ingalls, booting where it was steep enough and soft enough to cause problems. We then traversed the ridge to the north on foot because we could not tell from our vantage point exactly how big the cornices were. We had lunch on the small high point immediately S of point 6878.

After lunch we decended to the saddle just S of point 6878 and made a nice run down the E side about 800ft on nice, but rapidly warming snow. After skinning and climbing back up we traversed back (on skis this time since we could clearly see that staying next to the rock was well away from the cornices), and skied down to about 5100 ft following a small trail of skiable snow. We picked up the trail shortly below that and headed back, returning to cam at about 3:30.

The skiing was really good (typical spring softness in spots) throughout because it was getting cold enough overnight to freeze (there was frost in our camp on Sunday morning). Great day with good people and I look forward to skiing with our new members more in the future.