Home > Trip Reports > July 10, 2011, Chutefest, Sunrise

July 10, 2011, Chutefest, Sunrise

7/10/11
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
2697
5
Posted by Zap on 7/10/11 9:13am
After spending the past 5 days chasing seashells along the CA and OR coast plus a jet boat ride on the Rogue River, I planned a quiet tour to Dege Peak. I started a lazy traverse from the Sunrise area towards Dege in peace and solitude.  I reached the summit and was enjoying the clouds drifting over Rainier.  A couple tourers approached the summit and it was some familiar faces of Kit and Darryl.  Now I knew they weren€™t alone and asked about the rest of the group.  That€™s when I learned that Ron J had called a €œChutefest€ and I knew more familiar faces would eventually arrive.  As each person neared the summit they removed their skis and hiked the rocky trail to the summit, except for Cass.  He proudly skinned over the dirt and rocks about 30 feet to the summit.  Apparently this is a tradition for Cass on Dege, hmmm.  ;) It was great to see so many familiar and new folks on a slightly overcast day with excellent coverage and a mix of mild sun cups with variable runnels.

I chose to allow the youth to skim the surface snow and provide a smoother sliding surface. MadDog began her descent on a side chute and tried to convince Ron to join her.  But no, Ron ascended higher to the last chute before the summit.  I personally think Ron was unable to complete the full rotation which caused him to tumble a wee bit and skid his face into a rock.  He quickly recovered and joined the seniors at the upper traverse back to the climbers€™ ridge.  The younger segment descended to the bottom of the bowl and started skinning out.  Kit quickly joined the traverse from the bottom and finished breaking trail for us.  Once on the ridge, we were able to see Ron€™s face after the rock meeting.  As the saying goes, €œonly a face a mother could love.€  So the photo should indicate who won the rock and face meeting.  Ron had a blood stained beard and shirt with nice dried blood on his cheeks, yuck.  O yeah, plus a black eye.  After numerous sympathy expressions we headed to the hairpin parking lot and drove up to Sunrise.  The group divide into two bunches: Antler Bowl and Fear Factor.  After being on the road for 3 weeks, Jill and I were ready to get home and missed that part of the day.

The sun was breaking through as we watched the groups skinning toward Sourdough Ridge.  We should see more photos of their ski and the post ski BBQ.  Great to see so many TAY folks-familiar and new. 

Photo 1 - Sunrise Coverage from Dege

Photo 2 - Cass skinning to Dege summit

Photo 3 - Dege Chuters
Ron's meeting with a rock.

It looks like you all had a great day.  The snow coverage up there is phenominal.  There is great skiing right from the car.  I did Dege on the 9th as part of an Antler to Dege traverse.  The Dege chute was so nice we had to do a quick bootpack back up for a second lap.

Way to go Ron J , spill some of that geezer blood for the common good.
Seriously, I'm glad you're ok .

Merely a flesh wound... adds character, right Ron? Oh yes, you are a character!

MadDog, nice skiing the "civilized" chute with you. Like the oatmeal man says... "it's the right thing to do."

I better not see a worker's comp claim out of that, Ron.  ;)

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july-10-2011-chutefest-sunrise
Zap
2011-07-10 16:13:09