Feb 4, 2018, Tronsen Ridge, Blewett Pass

With rain pounding Snoqualmie Pass we headed to Blewett to look for drier conditions. We parked at the highway at the road 7240 parking area, skinned up the road, then left it shortly after crossing Tronsen Creek. We intersected another skin track where we hit the summer trail #1205 a couple hundred feet higher and followed it with a couple minor detours around fallen trees. Coverage was adequate for skinning. we even had a couple of sunbreaks and had views NW toward the Teanaway peaks.

At about 5000 ft we decided to take a higher ascending traverse line than the summer trail. We traversed under some clearcuts populated with charred stumps. The wind above about 5200' was pretty gusty. We hit the ridge just N of where the summer trail does and found a dense patch of trees to shelter for a short lunch. We also had a short snow squall. We considered our descent options and decided to skin N along the ridge about 1/4 mile through some of the burn area (very cool/eerie landscape) and then turn W to descend through the cleacuts to intersect our uptrack. In the flat plateau where we transitioned I put a probe in and found about 95cm depth. Hmmm.

After some heavy, soft, low angle, springlike turns through the burned trees it rolls steeper down a W-facing slope with live trees. Here the snow thinned out dramatically and our skis started taking some shots. We ended up sidstepping down sections where it was too thin to turn until we finally got into the clear and were able to get into a drainage gully that had better depth. The half dozen turns here were soft and heavy, but pretty enjoyable. I promised myself I wouldn't look at my bases until we got back to the car.

We reconnected with our up track at about 5100' and began the unpleasant task of skiing out. After our adventures up higher we weren't inclined to pick our way through more thin coverage in the trees and opted to reverse skin track. In the forest there was a crust on top of the thin cover that made skiing off the track extra challenging, and a couple places that we took our skis off. Breaking out in the open lower angle slopes at about 4400' the snow softened up again, had adequate depth, and the final 200ft to the access road actually yielded some of the nicest turns. We skied the well-packed luge run down the road back to the highway. Examining my skis at the car I was pleasantly surprised to find nearly as bad as I feared. Overall, still better than skiing in the rain elsewhere! :)

It was a weird day, with sufficient snow and a soft surface on the access road, lower open areas and on top of the ridge, but very thin coverage and a nasty crust in the trees and steeper slopes. With more coverage this could be a really enjoyable tour, with better options for finding different, longer descent routes to avoid skiing out the trail.