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Snow In Low Valley Exists Reachable (Secret Patch)

9/15/12
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Posted by Don Heath on 9/8/12 11:45am
Short trip inspired by Cascadefreak.  Pretty fun to travel up to an area that I've only been to in full snow covered conditions.  It looks really different when you're scrambling up boulders and talus fields.

I lapped the patch 5 times, practicing jump turns to maximize the numbers, had lunch in the process, and then hiked down the usual ski route.  It's a little scarier, and WAY slower when you're scrambling and using veggie belays to climb down what is usually a whooping good time.

Saw no one in the valley, but tons of berry pickers near the roads. 

Kind of a cheap way to notch September, so I'm antsy to get out again later, where I can carpool with someone besides Anna, the snow dog.  Great "last" day of summer.
Hey, way to get September turns!  Any hints on your location, or have you been sworn to secrecy?

Mack,

The exact location is given to you in the post. Seek, and you shall find...
Nice job guys!

S...I...L...V...E...R

Tested this patch out today. Considering where it is and all, it is sizable! Only slight evidence of your passage remained.

Warning to anyone going up there - that is some of the most unstable spooky talus I've ever messed with, just to the N of the patch. Is directly under where that one part of the mountain cut loose a year or two ago. Sharp edges, lots of loose rubble, blocks of half ton or more routinely shifting when stepped upon.

Not so sizable was the patch I found just north, along the basin scramble route before I could see the other bigger patch looming in the fog. This small patch was about the size of the ground floor of a Seattle house, and couldn't have been more than  25 feet of vertical. So I had to lap it ten times just to even be respectable. On the plus side I was getting it pretty welll groomed by the time I was done. Found a rather strange artifact near this patch - homebuilt 10 foot railslide made of PVC and wood. Just sitting in the heather. Kids these days ...

Took the Bigfoot figls today just to avoid the patent insanity of carrying real skis through all that scrub huckleberry and talus. Decent conditions for them, cups were maybe B size, and soft.

Was pretty misty and foggy most of the day, and when I went up and over true summit as an add-on hike it was positively cold and blustery.

Good blueberries along the road thru clearcut.

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Don Heath
2012-09-08 18:45:01