|
|
|
|
|
|
Turns All Year Trip Reports
(1) Viewing these pages constitutes your acceptance of the Terms of Use.
(2) Disclaimer: the accuracy of information here is unknown, use at your own risk.
(3) Trip Report monthly boards: only actual trip report starts a new thread.
(4) Keep it civil and constructive - that is the norm here. |
|
|
|
|
Author
|
Topic: June 2nd, 2012, Birthday Tour via Spires Gulley (Read 1341 times)
|
Vince Lamphier
5Member
Offline
Posts: 65
WWW
|
For the second week in a row I headed for Washington Pass and the Birthday Tour area. From the beginning of the day I realized that the weather was going to give us a little of everything, starting with rain at 7 AM as we began our ascent up Spires Gulley. More pics at Whatcom StudioSome footage from the day Video
The start of the climb up Spires Gulley is at about 5000'.
As we climbed the sky got very dramatic with the sun poking through at times and lighting up Kangaroo Ridge.    
Towards the top of the gulley boot packing was necessary because of lack of snow
We continued booting it all the way to Blue Peak Col
After reaching Blue Peak Col at about 5500' we had a few moments of viewing
 
And then the snow came and we were socked in for the beginning of the descent down Madison Pass.
We couldn't see much for the first couple 100' , but the snow was nice and we kept our turns nice and tight. It was nice to run into Jaimie for the second week in a row, but this week we were the only two groups on the hill at that time. He was headed back up Madison Pass as we were going down. And then suddenly
the sun showed itself once again. The riding was great, but got a little sticky towards the bottom. We were having a blast whatever the conditions. The hike back up to the Kangaroo Pass area begins at about 6100'.
 
On the hike back up to Kangaroo pass the conditions were varying from sun to cloud cover to sun with snow, overall a great day to witness. 
On the way up I noticed the snow was some of the fluffiest corn I have seen this season, which got me excited for the other side because it didn't look like anybody had been through that way in at least a couple of days.
Once we reached our high point at about 7000' the scenery was breathtaking as Kangaroo Ridge was really lit up, and looking into the couloir I noticed some great untouched corn that I was expecting and felt stoked for the upcoming final descent.
 
The snow was great as expected, but we moved through rather fast with big cornices looming and signs of some big ones recently coming down. As we traversed back toward our starting point we came across one recent big slide that continued a couple thousand feet down the mountain with some car size boulders of snow.
  
We skied all but a 100 or so yards to the car. It was a great tour. Here is are final look at the Early Winter Spires and Liberty Bell.
Whatcom Studio
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: 06/18/12, 09:37 AM by Vince Lamphier »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
niko
5Member
Online
Posts: 76
|
Very informative: a great way to finesse the two-car issue. Wish I could follow your track tomorrow, dogs and all (I have two, too). N
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
jtack
Member
Offline
Posts: 258
|
Vince, nice to see you again, I enjoyed your pictures as well..
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thank you to our sponsors!
|
Contact turns-all-year.com
Turns All Year Trip Reports ©2001-2010 Turns All Year LLC. All Rights Reserved
The opinions expressed in posts are those of the poster and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Trip Reports administrators or Turns All Year LLC
|
Turns All Year Trip Reports | Powered by SMF 1.0.6.
© 2001-2005, Lewis Media. All Rights Reserved.
|
Page created in 0.237 seconds with 20 queries.
|
