Home > Trip Reports > July 8, 2012, Sunrise Third Burroughs

July 8, 2012, Sunrise Third Burroughs

7/8/12
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
4134
6
Posted by wolfs on 7/9/12 2:40pm
With the forecast calling for epic hot, and other Rainier area reports from the 7th reporting sticky conditions even before noon, decided to go with a location where I've never had any trouble with snow stickiness even though the air temps were likely to be hot.

And hot they were. Telemetry said a high of 79 but my car's thermo read more like 85. Granted I did start til 1 PM, figuring that no matter how early the start it would still be hot at some point during the day, and maybe was just as well to do the skiing in the approaching evening as it cooled off.

Tried to skin just a little above the higher of the two service roads but ran into several skis-off stretches, only reaching continuous snow past the generator building. Could then skin to Frozen saddle but at that point the only real alternative was to A frame the skis and boot the First Burroughs trail til it disappeared in snow and then follow the relatively logical bootpack to near (but not into) crest, then traverse snow remnants to avoid touching tundra until the trail reached the crest too. And at that point just kept booting to Second Burroughs turtle and 200' further downslope until finally there was snow going in the right direction. Pretty discouraged at that point with the heat and the lack of ski reward for many hours of travel and wondering why I hadn't plucked the low hanging fruit-Chutes of Sourdough and instead set out on this sideways semi-Saharan sojourn, ugh.

Fortunately from that point on skinning the remaining hour up Third Burroughs was fairly pleasant and finally got just a hint of breeze and promise of cooling temps. And at least the landscape was peaceable, hadn't seen anyone other than distant dot-people since Frozen saddle. Great view of Winthrop and the St Elmos to Carbon traverse route as always. Interesting rapidly forming and changing clouds, the harbingers of the predicted thunderstorms for the evening.

The top section of the pocket glacier access from direct summit had strangely already melted out. But could still get in from side. And the snow on that north side of 3rd Burroughs was great as usual. Pretty easy skinning from end of that run and traverse back to the Skyscraper/2nd divide and edge chute of  Second Burroughs that leads to upper Berkeley Park. This too was pretty nice snow, not sticky, not cupped or runneled, and still catching bit of sun. Again pleasant and continuous skin to exit from there back to Frozen saddle, and finally a short but satisfying run partway up First Burroughs and into Sunrise Park and eventual inevitable booting up the service road.

After the beating by the sun all the way out, the return ski in the now pleasant 70ish evening temps was total bliss, and the mountains looked great in the evening light. Third Burroughs seems to be a tour where a lot of the way out you find yourself asking "why, oh why?" ... but then on the way back, "ohhh yeah.... THAT's why!"

Can't explain why the Sunrise area snow seems immune to getting sticky. Now that I've been there twice within a few days I'll probably be moving on to other locales, sticky or not. But for anyone else that's had a goopy experience elsewhere in the last few days ... you might want to go check it out.





Thanks for the report! How did the Sourdough Chutes look? Cups or corn? :)

I deliberately didn't climb to the entrance of the Chutes, so that I could not be tempted away from my foolish Burroughs deathmarch by the Chutes' easy virtues ... so don't have any beta from Sunday. Other reports might have more recent. I did ski a couple of them all east of Antler on the 4th, were good and not all that cuppy (max inch deep?), but that is old info now.

author=K-Train link=topic=25339.msg107081#msg107081 date=1341988128]
Thanks for the report! How did the Sourdough Chutes look? Cups or corn? :)

Sourdough not cupped as of Sunday, except toward the very bottom - a few rock fall cups.  Snow was ridiculously nice for the temps.

author=mtngirl link=topic=25339.msg107173#msg107173 date=1342192810]
Sourdough not cupped as of Sunday, except toward the very bottom - a few rock fall cups.   Snow was ridiculously nice for the temps.

Ok, I stand corrected.  I looked back at my pics, and the snow WAS cupped, but it didn't ski like it was cupped.  It skied great.

I wonder if maybe we were really up at Sunrise last week because we searched for these infamous chutes and bowls around this area and had no luck.

author=K-Train link=topic=25339.msg107081#msg107081 date=1341988128]
Thanks for the report! How did the Sourdough Chutes look? Cups or corn? :)

I thought they were pretty good; yeah there's a little bit of cupping, but you're not getting bucked or chattered around.

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wolfs
2012-07-09 21:40:10