March 21-23, 2014, Roosevelt-Kaleetan-Granite

Rob and I left work a bit early on  a beautiful Friday and skinned up to the shoulder of Chair Peak. Skiing down to snow lake was very good, with fair coverage over the big slide path and debris field. We went north across  the lake and set up camp on one of the small outcroppings with a great view back to the north face of Chair and down the lake to the east. Saturday morning was spent relaxing in the bags, enjoying coffee and hot breakfast before we spotted Ross crossing the lake towards us. We hustled to pack up as he approached and the 3 of us started heading up towards Roosevelt. Booting up the ridge was a workout with overnight packs, the sun was out and well, it would have been a workout with a light daypack anyway. It was spectacular. We skied from the skiers summit and then down the north couloir which held pristine and excellent snow. A break to eat and  melt snow at the bottom of the bowl and then it was up one of the steep gullies of the Lower Wildcat Lake drainage to the ridge. We skied trees down to Kaleetan Lake, crossed the lake and ascended the steep ridge separating Kaleetan Lake from My Lake. By the time we reached the top of the ridge it was time to camp. Ross and Rob constructed an excellent flat platform while I melted snow. Dinner tasted great. Sunday morning we traversed the ridge eventually contouring into the bowls south of Kaleetan. Ski crampons were perfect on the firm smooth surface and they stayed on most of the way up, finally booting the final bit from the choke point in the summit gully. The summit was totally snow covered and we pulled our skins from a small cut platform on the south face with our heads above the summit. It€™s possible that an hour earlier the snow might have been rock solid and an hour later dangerously mushy. Luckily for us it was near perfect softening €œprotocorn€.  Lots of beautiful old growth touring, across the Pratt River, several lake crossings, plenty more old growth touring followed on this beautiful sunny day before we started up the north side of Granite Mountain. Unaware of the previous day€™s tragedy we skied conservative lines to the south west. We fanned out as the slope steepened and each of us set of wet slides with one running all the way to the moderate slope below. We then skied the slide paths which were firm, but relatively safe. Definitely super fun weekend with great company a few spectacular summits and lots of beautiful touring.