April 9, 2016, Chiwaukum Traverse
4/9/16
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Ethan, Pat, John and I completed the Chiwaukum Traverse going S-N in a day this past weekend. We split into two separate teams due to weight discrepancies in gear. Ethan and I chose to use race gear while Pat and John decided to suffer with "heavy" gear. The quick summary of the day goes something like, "breakable crust". We found horrible skinning and skiing conditions for pretty much the whole trip but even that can't ruin a sunny day in the mountains.
We hoped the icicle would be drivable to the Chatter Creek trailhead but ended up "enjoying" a 5 mile run at 4:00 am. the Chatter Creek trail is in fairly good condition with just a few blowdowns that were easily negotiated. the snow becomes continuous just as the Chatter Creek drainage starts to bend to the west. each transition from ridge to ridge along the traverse is extremely simple with direct skin up, ski down transitions. even the Swath is still skiing relatively well to the exit left onto the access road. the access road is starting to melt out so the last 2 miles to the car are now patchy snow.
A quick refresh of snow would make this a 100% pleasurable trip. In the conditions we found it... there were lost of good views!
A lengthy writeup and a lot more pictues can be found here
We hoped the icicle would be drivable to the Chatter Creek trailhead but ended up "enjoying" a 5 mile run at 4:00 am. the Chatter Creek trail is in fairly good condition with just a few blowdowns that were easily negotiated. the snow becomes continuous just as the Chatter Creek drainage starts to bend to the west. each transition from ridge to ridge along the traverse is extremely simple with direct skin up, ski down transitions. even the Swath is still skiing relatively well to the exit left onto the access road. the access road is starting to melt out so the last 2 miles to the car are now patchy snow.
A quick refresh of snow would make this a 100% pleasurable trip. In the conditions we found it... there were lost of good views!
A lengthy writeup and a lot more pictues can be found here
Solid work getting that done in a day! It sounds like running it N->S would have been easier skiing and skinning?
With a consolidated snowpack n-s would be much more efficient. I can't imagine doing it n-s in the conditions we found. All the ups would have been too steep to skin with the breakable crust (too icy) yet not boot supportable. We would have been knee deep through the crust... Ugh. That said, with a solid snowpack it would be amazingly efficient.
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