Home > Trip Reports > May 21, 2017, Mt.Stuart Cascadian Couloir

May 21, 2017, Mt.Stuart Cascadian Couloir

5/21/17
WA Cascades East Slopes Central
3025
4
Posted by Pete A on 5/21/17 10:51pm
Headed east to try to find corn - found mostly mush, but at least it was mostly shallow mush :)

Teanaway Rd still blocked with concrete barriers 1.5 miles from the summer trailhead- thin, but mostly continuous snow starts .5 mile up the road.

Carried skis for a bit, then skinned the west facing couloir near the start of the trail to access the alpine - my guess is that if you followed the longs pass trail, there's probably a bit more hiking due to melt out.

Didnt' refreeze overnight, so skinning was easy- skiing off Longs Pass at 6am was on barely supportive breakable crust over 12" of mush.

The open slope/fan below Cascadian Couloir has melted out, but we pieced together an almost continuous up/down route in the trees to climbers left of the slope.  There were lots of spots that will be melted out in no time.

The couloir went fast, the lower angled boulder field above has some rotten spots.  the last pitch the false summit was already past corn-o-clock at 11am when we topped out - didn't go to the try summit as the snow was only gonna get mushier.

The ski down was fun, though an exercise in sluff mgmt.   My guess it that given the hot weather this week, anyone giving this a try over memorial day weekend should expect at least a few hundred vf of hiking bare terrain to reach the couloir proper.

the east side of Longs Pass still has some fat cornices - seems like everyone is skinning back out via a slope far to climbers left of Longs and then skinning along the ridge - thus avoiding the cornices. 

didn't break any speed records - and took lots of breaks on the way back out - started at 4:30am , hit the false summit at 11ish and back at the car around 4:30pm







I think our party saw you? Were you the group of three hanging out on the upper boulder field around noon?

wasn't us...we were just a party of two.  i think there were five parties of skiers on the route yesterday - one earlybird group that was on the way down around 10am, then two other groups near us on the same schedule, then another group of three about an hour behind the rest of us.

Hey Pete! I was the guy who was milking you for beta in the parking lot as you guys were gearing up to head home yesterday.  We camped at Longs pass last night and skied the Cascadian today.  We headed off the false summit around 11 am and it was nice and soft from top to bottom where many shenanigans were had getting back to
Ingalls creek. Even snow bridges we has used (not to cross the main creek, just the side ones) in the morning had already melted out or collapsed.  It's going fast back there.  Also thanks for the tip on that sneaky couloir, it was nice to ascend and actually skied great on the way out today around 3:30 pm.


Side note: If you camped at Longs pass Saturday night on the dry patch and left a plastic travel french press PM me.  I picked it up and brought it back to Seattle with me, looks like a cool contraption.

Nice TR!  I believe we met at Longs Pass in the morning, and then again off and on through the ascent.  I was in the group of three camped at Longs Pass Saturday night.

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may-21-2017-mt-stuart-cascadian-couloir
Pete A
2017-05-22 05:51:17