Home > Trip Reports > December 29-31, 2014, Hannegan Pass

December 29-31, 2014, Hannegan Pass

12/29/14
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Posted by Rowan Stewart on 1/3/15 4:41am
My Father and I have a tradition of skiing together on new years eve, and for the past 3 years now we have lucked out and had great powder conditions. With clear skies and cold temps in the forecast, we decided to camp at hannegan pass, with hopes of skiing making powder turns on mt ruth. After breakfast at the wake'n'bakery, we were skinning up the hannegan pass road by a little past 10.


the road is closed at mp 2 for no good reason whatsoever, despite being driveable to mp4.  The skin up the valley was beautiful, with temps cool enough to keep us in heavy gloves and multiple layers the whole way in. The dramatic wind scoured slopes of mt sefrit loomed above us for most of the day.




The sun set well before we made it to the pass, so we skinned the remainder of the trail by headlamp, and decided to make camp in a beautiful clearing a couple of hundred feet below the pass partly because we were tired, partly to hide from the strong winds that had been blowing all day.

It was a cold night.

but the morning sun warmed us right up.
My Dad will be sixty five this year, and his legs aren't as strong as they once were, so considering that and the problems he was having with his tele bindings, (yes he is still dropping knees, and refuses to convert) we decided to stare at mountains and ski pow around the pass rather than trekking all the way up ruth in the wind.





redoubt and mox peaks above.
the snow was excellent, and so was stability, (with the exception of a few isolated pockets of windslab,) so we lapped the slopes above camp all day. We watched the sun set, drank whiskey, and I listened to my dads stories of cold nights he spent out in his own youth.
The next morning I took off solo and rode a couple of laps in more excellent snow.


Then we packed up camp, thanked the mountains over the last of the whiskey, and began the long ski back down the valley. We capped the trip off with a new years dinner at a very busy grahams. it was a great way to ring in the new year.
Great photos with the new camera!

You've had the quite the four days.

A great Dad, plus TR and photos. ;)

Super nice story.  My dad can't do stuff like that these days but we still get out hiking when I'm back East. 

He musta done all right with ya!

Rad report Rowan!

Most excellent!

Thanks for the kind words. Here is a little video

Awesome on many levels!

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december-29-31-2014-hannegan-pass
Rowan Stewart
2015-01-03 12:41:28