May 12-13, 2018, Birthday Tour and Kangaroo Ridge
5/12/18
WA Cascades East Slopes North
2427
1
Like most of western Washington, we went to WA Pass this weekend. After a planned 6AM Seattle departure, actual 6:40AM departure, and three stops along the way due to poor choice of breakfast, we snagged the last spot in the pullout west of the Blue Lake TH. Skinning began at 10:50AM, which is before lunchtime and therefore an #alpinestart.
After some time, we arrived at Blue Peak Col. We tried flying a small power kite for a while, but the winds were fickle, and we called it quits after 45 minutes or so.
photo by Maddie
From here, the skiing was quite good, although at times it looked like a ski resort. Daunted by the prospect of hitching a ride to our cars at the Blue Lake TH, we started up Spire Gully to ski down to the cars. It quickly became apparent that Spire Gully could be the best skiing of the day, so with the generous help of two others we met at the choke point, we arranged a car shuttle.
Spire Gully at 6:45PM was, indeed, the best skiing of the day. Over 2000ft with no approach, hoochus me!
Upon completion of the car shuttle, we learned that our buried dinner had been found by critters. This was unfortunate from a wildlife preservation standpoint, but did give us a great excuse to go to the Old Schoolhouse. Burger needs satisfied, we retired to Klipchuck CG.
...
There was never much of a plan for what to do on Sunday. Silver Star was an option that was thrown around; other objectives off of the Birthday Tour were also a possibility. We spent a lot of time looking at Kangaroo Ridge on Saturday, and kept coming back to a curving slide path with a couloir at the top, which looked like it would hold safe ascent options, minimal tree skiing, and continuous snow to the ridge. We assume this thing has been skied many times, but decided to call it the Banana Couloir for reasons of morphological resemblance.
We awoke to the sounds of sensible early birds packing up and leaving. Then we went back to bed, and woke up again at 7. Leisurely breakfast, packing tetris, and a Mazama Store lunch run had us at the pullout above the hairpin sometime well-within our self-defined #alpinestart threshold. There we were accosted by a fellow with his thumbs twiddling at a handheld remote:
"Did you know you were parking in my landing zone?"
"How the **** could we have known that this perfectly good parking space was reserved for your (oversized vanity mosquito/quasilegal* overhead hazard/insert favorite drone euphemism here)?"
is what we were thinking. However, we left it at "no", and decided we should really be at the lower pullout anyway. A chat about the best way to get to the top of Silver Star with a friendly self-described "boot-stepper" doing reconnaissance had us skinning, again, at 10:50AM.
We skinned through the trees on the climber's right side of the slide path for awhile, and unanimously agreed that we definitely were not going to ski back down the trees. Fortunately, things eventually opened up and we were able to get good views of the couloir at the top of the route and the slide path below us. We transitioned at 7200'-ish, and had a pleasant boot to the top. The time was 1:30PM.
1:30PM? Isn't that glop o'clock? Well no, as it turns out, because the couloir had been shaded by its south wall for most of the morning. It was excellent. The slide path was bumpier than we thought it was going to be, but still pretty decent. The last pitch down to the small trees was definitely sticky.
At the car, we were pleased to find that the ravens had not found our buried beers. Pro tip: you can get 22oz draft pours at the Old Schoolhouse for $3.50.
yet another photo by Maddie
In conclusion, Kangaroo Ridge is really fun. We chose our line because it looked like it went all the way to the top (it did...with about 15 vertical feet of scree) and it went further down to the valley floor without trees than any others. Plenty of neat things to ski up there, though!
light blue: skinning; dark blue: booting; red: skiing
*The hairpin is not in the NCNP, nor is it in a wilderness area, so as far as I know this guy was not breaking the law as long as he kept the drone below 400'.
Notes on decision-making:
-The skiing probably would have been better top-to-bottom if we had gotten up earlier on Sunday. However, we did not all have boot crampons, and none of us had axes, so we didn't want to deal with the possibility of a bulletproof upper couloir.
-There were no signs of recent loose-wet action in the vicinity of our line on Kangaroo Ridge. The middle part of the slide path was full of debris that was at least several days old. We were unable to set off rollerballs, etc. However...
-Sometime on Sunday, there was a new loose-wet slide on Spire Gully. It originated from the cliff band between the gully and the spires, weaved around on the skier's left side of the gully, and eventually stopped in the choke near the bottom. We did not see it happen, if anyone did I would love to hear about it. Judging from photo metadata, I think it happened between 11:50AM and 1:45PM.
On motorcycle accidents:
-On the way to the Old Schoolhouse (still west of Mazama), we came upon a motorcycle accident, which fortunately didn't look too bad. The victim was walking around with a pretty bloody arm, but appeared otherwise unscathed. It looked like he laid the bike down and slid into the ditch, which was relatively forgiving on this part of highway 20. There were already two other cars there, and 911 had been called, so we continued to Winthrop. While there, though, an ambulance raced through town, and there were rumors of a possibly-fatal motorcycle-deer accident on 20. I tried looking that accident up and haven't found anything, but apparently there was a fatal motorcycle accident on 20 near Diablo yesterday as well.
After some time, we arrived at Blue Peak Col. We tried flying a small power kite for a while, but the winds were fickle, and we called it quits after 45 minutes or so.
photo by Maddie
From here, the skiing was quite good, although at times it looked like a ski resort. Daunted by the prospect of hitching a ride to our cars at the Blue Lake TH, we started up Spire Gully to ski down to the cars. It quickly became apparent that Spire Gully could be the best skiing of the day, so with the generous help of two others we met at the choke point, we arranged a car shuttle.
Spire Gully at 6:45PM was, indeed, the best skiing of the day. Over 2000ft with no approach, hoochus me!
Upon completion of the car shuttle, we learned that our buried dinner had been found by critters. This was unfortunate from a wildlife preservation standpoint, but did give us a great excuse to go to the Old Schoolhouse. Burger needs satisfied, we retired to Klipchuck CG.
...
There was never much of a plan for what to do on Sunday. Silver Star was an option that was thrown around; other objectives off of the Birthday Tour were also a possibility. We spent a lot of time looking at Kangaroo Ridge on Saturday, and kept coming back to a curving slide path with a couloir at the top, which looked like it would hold safe ascent options, minimal tree skiing, and continuous snow to the ridge. We assume this thing has been skied many times, but decided to call it the Banana Couloir for reasons of morphological resemblance.
We awoke to the sounds of sensible early birds packing up and leaving. Then we went back to bed, and woke up again at 7. Leisurely breakfast, packing tetris, and a Mazama Store lunch run had us at the pullout above the hairpin sometime well-within our self-defined #alpinestart threshold. There we were accosted by a fellow with his thumbs twiddling at a handheld remote:
"Did you know you were parking in my landing zone?"
"How the **** could we have known that this perfectly good parking space was reserved for your (oversized vanity mosquito/quasilegal* overhead hazard/insert favorite drone euphemism here)?"
is what we were thinking. However, we left it at "no", and decided we should really be at the lower pullout anyway. A chat about the best way to get to the top of Silver Star with a friendly self-described "boot-stepper" doing reconnaissance had us skinning, again, at 10:50AM.
We skinned through the trees on the climber's right side of the slide path for awhile, and unanimously agreed that we definitely were not going to ski back down the trees. Fortunately, things eventually opened up and we were able to get good views of the couloir at the top of the route and the slide path below us. We transitioned at 7200'-ish, and had a pleasant boot to the top. The time was 1:30PM.
1:30PM? Isn't that glop o'clock? Well no, as it turns out, because the couloir had been shaded by its south wall for most of the morning. It was excellent. The slide path was bumpier than we thought it was going to be, but still pretty decent. The last pitch down to the small trees was definitely sticky.
At the car, we were pleased to find that the ravens had not found our buried beers. Pro tip: you can get 22oz draft pours at the Old Schoolhouse for $3.50.
yet another photo by Maddie
In conclusion, Kangaroo Ridge is really fun. We chose our line because it looked like it went all the way to the top (it did...with about 15 vertical feet of scree) and it went further down to the valley floor without trees than any others. Plenty of neat things to ski up there, though!
light blue: skinning; dark blue: booting; red: skiing
*The hairpin is not in the NCNP, nor is it in a wilderness area, so as far as I know this guy was not breaking the law as long as he kept the drone below 400'.
Notes on decision-making:
-The skiing probably would have been better top-to-bottom if we had gotten up earlier on Sunday. However, we did not all have boot crampons, and none of us had axes, so we didn't want to deal with the possibility of a bulletproof upper couloir.
-There were no signs of recent loose-wet action in the vicinity of our line on Kangaroo Ridge. The middle part of the slide path was full of debris that was at least several days old. We were unable to set off rollerballs, etc. However...
-Sometime on Sunday, there was a new loose-wet slide on Spire Gully. It originated from the cliff band between the gully and the spires, weaved around on the skier's left side of the gully, and eventually stopped in the choke near the bottom. We did not see it happen, if anyone did I would love to hear about it. Judging from photo metadata, I think it happened between 11:50AM and 1:45PM.
On motorcycle accidents:
-On the way to the Old Schoolhouse (still west of Mazama), we came upon a motorcycle accident, which fortunately didn't look too bad. The victim was walking around with a pretty bloody arm, but appeared otherwise unscathed. It looked like he laid the bike down and slid into the ditch, which was relatively forgiving on this part of highway 20. There were already two other cars there, and 911 had been called, so we continued to Winthrop. While there, though, an ambulance raced through town, and there were rumors of a possibly-fatal motorcycle-deer accident on 20. I tried looking that accident up and haven't found anything, but apparently there was a fatal motorcycle accident on 20 near Diablo yesterday as well.
Apologies for out of order response:
Nice job! Super fun! This is a wonderfully entertaining and very informative trip report. Those of us penned up at work while the Grand Prix WA Pass start flag dropped are very grateful. And for all the 5 AM skin starts of my life, I cherish the yawn full pot of coffee I'll get there when I get there starts so much that I fear we may be twin sons of different mothers. A friend of mine in Winthrop was filling me in on how he's recovering from the second motor sickle vs. deer crash of his life just last week. But don't let everybody know how ridiculously awesome 20 and the Valley are and especially Old Schoolhouse. Except everyone already knows.
Nice job! Super fun! This is a wonderfully entertaining and very informative trip report. Those of us penned up at work while the Grand Prix WA Pass start flag dropped are very grateful. And for all the 5 AM skin starts of my life, I cherish the yawn full pot of coffee I'll get there when I get there starts so much that I fear we may be twin sons of different mothers. A friend of mine in Winthrop was filling me in on how he's recovering from the second motor sickle vs. deer crash of his life just last week. But don't let everybody know how ridiculously awesome 20 and the Valley are and especially Old Schoolhouse. Except everyone already knows.
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