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Mar 18 Seven Lakes Basin

3/18/16
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Posted by RonL on 3/20/16 1:00am
My apologies to those I had chatted with in the past about doing this trip but I was fighting some crud and didn't want to make up my mind on going until the alarm went off so I didn't really plan it out. I am more than ready to go back though .

Same conditions mentioned elsewhere. Some settled pow stowed on the N faces, some windboard on the ridges, sun doughnuts sometimes 5 feet high rolling down to homer someone unsuspecting. Doh! A few wet sloughs naturally triggering but otherwise it was a good traveling day.

Couple more;

almost have them all right side up now;


Nice!

Is the tour worth trying to do this time of year in a day without it feeling like a sprint?

Worth it? I think so. It wasn't a complete sprint. I lost about an hour to route finding snafus and still had time to drop way below the trail to avoid slide paths and then take a second long run in the basin. I had originally wanted to summit Bogochiel but the direct route was getting really sun affected and when I was in the basin I preferred the sub peak closest to the summit because it had more protected snow and was still high enough to enjoy the views of Olympus. There would have been time to summit Bogochiel on this tour. I left it for another trip because it seemed like it would be fun to do the direct way on a nice corn day, something to come back for.

The advantages to this time of year or earlier would be powder, putting the skins on earlier ( I started just after the Canyon Crk Bridge tho a smarter man might have stopped sooner) and getting to see the conditions at their fattest. The advantages to spring time would be more daylight, and less avy concerns. I would like to come back in the spring for Bogochiel but will have to see how things line up with my days off. I would even come back for powder in the dead of winter for the little bowl above Deer Lake. There were a lot of gentle relatively safe glades there that would be fun to lap as an alternative to another day of touring Hurricane Ridge which is my usual ski day in the winter months.

Thanks for the inspiration and pics. Sounds like it was a great trip.
Was the road open all the way to the trailhead parking lot?
That bowl above Deer Lake is a lot of fun, and it would be even more so in midwinter---but how would you get in? At least in past years I think they've kept the road gated at the highway (15 miles from the trailhead) until it melts out. I've had fantasies of mountain biking it as far as possible and then flat-tracking the rest of the way to the trailhead, but I'd need at least one overnight to do that.

Nice work and photos. I'm also interested in gate status.

The road was in great shape to the trailhead. This page has the latest;

http://www.nps.gov/olym/planyourvisit/current-road-conditions.htm

It had been closed earlier in the winter due to storm damage but they got it open again and I noticed snowshoe trip reports began appearing on the WTA site again. I just had to wait for a good weather window to line up with my free time.

As for the inspiration I have to give credit to Roger Merrill Oakes and his book about skiing in the Olympics. I thumbed thru the book at the ranger station and saw mention briefly that they had once considered developing the area for skiing which prompted a late fall hike out there in a couple of inches of snow. I was sitting on top of Bogachiel after that hike and could really visualize a lot of great skiing potential. In looking around the internet I found one record of a guy skiing Bogachiel in the 30s sometime.

Someone ended up giving me the book for christmas and it provided me a sort of loose framework for my entire winter. The pictures in there of skiing Deer Park moved Blue Mtn up my list in order to experience skiing down toward the old resort. I spent a handful of weekends on the rope tow with my kids at Hurricane Ridge in addition to my usually touring up there. Finally I got back into this area on skis and I don't think I will consider it complete until I come back for a corn day for some peak bagging.


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2016-03-20 08:00:23