February 11,12, 2006, Eagle Point, ONP

My wife, Sidnie, and I set out for Obstruction Peak from the Hurricane Ridge parking lot at 12:30 on Saturday.  The late start was a result of the need to arrange a ride from a park ranger from three miles down the road where all "overnighters" are required to park.  Next time we will be waiting at the gate when it opens.  The Park had not been open the previous weekend due to severe wind and snow, and crowds were large.  Eventually, the park rangers closed the gate because there was simply no more parking available. Fortunately, we had purchased a backcountry overnight permit($9) and were entitled to park three miles down the road and be shuttled to the trailhead by a ranger.  This saved our trip but the late start meant that we could only go as far as Waterhole(about 4 miles) before dark.  At the trailhead we met a skier with a broken ski who had been heading for Deer Park, the eastern terminus of Hurricane Ridge. The best news for him was that the ski broke only a half mile into the 16 mile trip. It turns out that he was part of Lowell Skoog's group.
The trail starts with a short decent on breakable crust to a road which goes east along the south slopes of Hurricane Ridge.  We put on skins at the beginning of the road which may have been a mistake since the road makes no elevation gain for 4 miles.  With the well established ski track, the small ups and downs could have been skied without skins most of the way to Waterhole.  The snow was mush with icy patches in the shade causing typical spring skin problems such as glue failure and soggy fabric.  The pine needles had no trouble sticking the glue once the snow worked its way between the skin and ski.  I envied the skiers on waxless skis who passed us.  We met one guy about three miles out who was on his way back from  Obstruction Point, the end of the road (8miles).  Since our goal was to do some downhill skiing, we decided to stop at 4 miles and set up camp in a tree sheltered flat sadle called Waterhole.  There is a small shelter here which was occupied by a lone snowshoer.  We set camp and enjoyed a beautiful moonlit evening before clouds moved in the wind began to blow
We woke to overcast skys and cooler temps and decided to climb Eagle Point a nearby 6200 foot peak and ski  north facing slopes before we had to make the return trip. As we were preparing to leave, we were surprised to see the same guy who we had met the day before on his way out to Obstruction Point again. He had made the 4 mile trip to our camp in a little over an hour.  We followed in his wake as the road began to climb the south flank of Eagle Point.  The road broke out of the trees onto a bullet proof 35 degree slope that made me wish for my ski crampons.  We left the road and ski track and set as steep a line as our skins would take toward the peak.  The south facing slopes were wind scoured and set up and we were dreading the trip back down if we had to retrace our steps.  Once we reached a knoll just below the summit we stopped to admire the view and scope the steep slopes falling away to the north.
After a stability evaluation by ski cutting we decided to ski the north side of the ridge which led back toward camp rather than descend directly down the drainage and have to skin back out.  This gave us a downhill run of about a mile and a half without having to  replace skins before reaching camp.  This was good because my poor G3 skins were in bad shape from the previous day's glop.
The skiing was unbelievably good.  Where the south face had seemed almost unskiable, the north slopes were perfect corn snow and stable as rock.  We flew down the ridge making short  five to six turn forays down the fall line and traversing quickly under a couple of cornices baking in the sun.  We finally ran into trees and dropped back on to the south slope and skied the tight trees back to the road about 200 yard from our camp.  
We broke camp and skated without skins back to the trailhead in 2 hours. Hitchiked back to our car.
A taste of spring corn and the goodness to come.