Home > Trip Reports > April 6-7-8, 2012, Snowking Environs

April 6-7-8, 2012, Snowking Environs

4/6/12
8153
18
Posted by Jake the Brit on 4/9/12 2:57pm
€œExplore€ mama said.
€œPeel the eyelids back on the world and take a good look in, and kick around a bit while you€™re in there€. Shyly, she didn€™t say that at all, she said 'eat your dinner€™, €™use your table manners€™, 'why weren€™t you top in class?€™. But I knew what she meant.

So here I was with Victor, hard at the wheel of the Cascade Penetrator, exploring.
We€™d bullied our way in from the Cascade River road to Cyclone lake, overslept and the Saturday sunshine brought the  bliss and dispelled the ramp-madness as we skinned up the east arm of Snowking.

€œThat ramp looks FREAKY€, translates from Victors native French into 'I€™m not going there€™. Neither was I, the climber in me just wanted to sit on top of the Cheval summit block & laugh. The ramp is the obvious way up the north face: The Fr4eaky Ramp, totally, not a ski route this year.
The agent provocateur Scurlock has some great mountain porn of the ramp in question, and this had provided our motivation to get to Cheval via Snowking.  http://www.pbase.com/nolock/image/37109055

Anyway, that door was shut. But it€™s 9AM, and we still want to get up something, so we aim for the east Cheval summit, drop 3000€™ down like hellions,  via the Snowking SW bowls, old pocket-of-a-glacier, and gully, into the head of the Illabot Creek, and then haul up the tree€™d ridge to 6000€™ onto the NE arm of Cheval, aiming to get onto the east face and up the SE ridge.
Stopped by a combination of cornices, lateness & general refusal to end up in a snowcave, we scream back down again, hellion-styleee, back up Snowking, down again, drinking the powder deep deep inside, back down the glacier, avoiding the guts of it, the boiler plate under the pow is letting things go. Down the ridge above, west of Cyclone lake and that€™s it. We€™re done. 6PM, just in time for dinner, and to light the fire.

The next day, our departure was a leisurely affair, in the clear line, the light of the Ptarmigan traverse was laid out for us left to right. Along the way we discovered big cat tracks, a mountain lion had followed us out along the ridge above Found Lake, well we€™re too big and stinky to eat,,,
I reckon on a few more glasses of Pinot€¦
Cheval North Side.

Right on, great TR; I love the Snowking area! It's very remote feeling and so much great terrain. I was in there in February and it was a 6 mile ski just to get to where the S. side cascade river road is blocked. I eyed the way over to Cheval but just getting up all that road took the steam out of me. Could you drive to that point now?

Hillmap:
http://www.hillmap.com/m/ag1zfmhpbGxtYXAtaGRychALEghTYXZlZE1hcBiYgBoM
the way back was different down the Snowking n side glacier

Parked 1/2 mile from the south side cascade river road. There's a little log on the road buried in 2' of smashed (it's-been-attacked-by-a-big-truck- snow), probably melted now snow.

Beautiful! Jaw dropping terrain like you said. Nice tour you two!

I vote for more photos.

awesome trip .. snowking looks stunning

Right on...beautiful back in there. Thanks for the pics!

this is what I meant by less then ambitious...!
40 miles?
Nice one guys!






An amazing trip in our backyard... vertigo effect looking at all those unlimited untouched lines.
A few pictures to capture our 3 days: from green lush to magnificent white peaks with freaky (or mellow) lines  :)

Another set of 3  :)

Full set of pictures at https://picasaweb.google.com/104952785231857279993/SnowkingEChaval

WOW .. so many awesome pix .. but i esp love this last one #59

when did you hit snow?

when did you hit snow?


Skinned 300ft on the S Side of Cascade Road (mainly last switchback) before starting the bushwhacking at 2400ft. Put skis back on around 3000ft and never took them off  :)

author=kath link=topic=24463.msg103345#msg103345 date=1334079310]
so many awesome pix .. but i esp love this last one #59


Dittos!

The way to avoid that freaky ramp would be to approach from the West, via Betty's Jugs, which seems a shorter route than yours but of course you woudn't get to ski Snowking.

Fantastic effort, gentlemen.

Niko

Nicely done gentlemen! Nice of Ari to lend you his rig should you need to bushwack with the car.

Interesting tracks of the cat. I once saw a large mountain lion while returning from a solo ski of Shuksan's Sulfide Easter 2000. I was scared stiff because I knew when they see one person they think 'meal' whereas when they see two or more they think 'herd', so I have been told. Fortunately he was well ahead of me and never saw me.

Thanks for sharing the detailed map of the trip. Nice to see Victor added some color to his outfit.


Beautiful.

It's been way too long since I was up Snowking and your pictures make me want to go back again. I also like this one from your Picasa site:

https://picasaweb.google.com/104952785231857279993/SnowkingEChaval#5729819971252156562

Ha, gunning for the fattest thread of the month....

Anyway, here are my photos, hope it works.
http://jakeevans.smugmug.com/Washington/Snowking-Chaval/22385564_Xbbgk5

Also Ale, Hillmap says it was only 13 miles all the way from the car to the E Arm of Chaval over the Snowking summit, so it was about 26 miles, next time....

Sweet trip - Thanks for sharing all of those tasty images - Way to get after it

You guys are awesome! What a fantastic trip. Glad you had fun.
Jake, thanks for the link to the pictures, so great to see Victor in front of the camera for a change.
Victor, that's a pretty nice blue jacket you're wearing ;)

Reply to this TR

9699
april-6-7-8-2012-snowking-environs
Jake the Brit
2012-04-09 21:57:04