June 29, 2012, Colchuck Glacier

What a day.  Jamie Tackman lured me out of work for a day-ski of the Colchuck Glacier above Lake Colchuck on Friday.  He didn't have to work very hard.  A quick phone call on Wednesday to plant the seed, with a 30 second follow-up call on Thursday.  We met at the Park and Ride in Wenatchee at 5:30 AM and we were in the Colchuck parking lot at 6:30 AM.  Sneaker walk for me, hikers for Jamie with his skis slung over his shoulder.  We were at the Lake at 9 AM.  Jamie showed me "the shortcut" which is worth fifty bucks on the way up, but more on the way down.  There were only 4 cars in the parking lot when we left, but many more when we returned, more on that shortly.  We were skiing by noon, with our second run at about 1:30 PM

Highlighs were this here goat thinking he was going to get in a run with us:


Clams at the col:


and some sweet sweet skiing:




The weatherman said 30% chance of rain.  For that forcast, we had a pretty nice day, as you can see from the complete lack of nasty rain clouds in this photo :)


The ski is 2500' from the col (at 8000') to the Lake (at 5500'). and we skied down the Aasgard side of the moraine to the bottom of the slope.  From the Lake level on this side, we couldn't get back to the trail without boulder hopping that nasty area at the head of the lake.  We reasoned that the boulder field might take a half hour, and to skin the 1100' back up and over the moraine might take around 40 minutes, so really, we could ski another eleven hundred feet for the cost of only 10 extra minutes.  A no brainer!


the other side (not as silky smooth, but still... skiing to the lake - pretty nice.



We met some interesting people on the walk out including a lady with strong and persistent perfume, a boy with punk-clown shoes, a guy camping right on the trail

Well, maybe not on it I guess, but he was so close that he couldn't erect his vestibule without stringing across the trail.

And a guy on the triple couloir approach snowfield on Aasgard Pass that was hauling his pack around by rope. 

He would dig a little platform with his axe, then move up 15 feet or so (slowly) and then after a rest, pull his pack up to him by a rope.  He went uphill for a little ways over a long period of time, and then he worked his way downhill in a similar manner (again for a long time, but only a little progress) and then he left his pack on the snow and moved onto the boulders.  We shouted to him, but he didn't respond.  We didn't come to a satisfactory guess as to what he was up to.

This was a fabulous ski day with completely care-free skiing.  More slush than corn, but really neither.  It skied like about 4" of sugary rotten snow on a firm base.  This was a good skiing surface because the suncups are big enough that firmer conditions would rattle your brain.  I think we hit this (quite by accident) just perfectly.

Here is a video of Jamie making sweet turns on the Glacier http://youtu.be/5BGe0wWEgJw