January 22, 2012, North Ridge Jim Hill Mtn

Thomas and I toured up the north face of the ridge that divides Lanham Creek from [s]Harrison[/s] Henry Creek.  It probably has a real name, but I don€™t know it, so for us it is the North Ridge of Jim Hill Mountain.  The bottom 1000€™ are a brutal bushwack up and down, but the 1600 vertical above that is a quite nice treed north aspect with pleasantly spaced trees and a moderate slope.  We found decent if somewhat wind affected snow on the western half of the slope that skied much better than we expected it would on the skin up.  For our second run we skied a line on the eastern side of the face and found better snow.  It had been snowing nearly all day with light winds and that left us with some very nice snow in the afternoon.  Given the chance I would reverse the order of the lines as we were left with about a mile of skiing to get back to our car parked at the Stevens Pass Nordic Center.  We only ran into two other people, a pair of splitboarders, the whole day which left plenty of nice snow for everyone.  I am not worried about exposing any secret stash because anyone willing to endure the bottom 1000€™ has earned the right to any good snow they find.

I hope to have some photos to post tonight.