March 19, 2006, Jim Hill Mountain, Stevens Pass

Indecision gave way to a plan to head for the north-facing slopes of Jim Hill Mountain after David's experience Friday of great powder on north facing slopes around Heather Ridge. We arrived fairly early to the train tunnel pullout with just one car present, and as we were gearing up Jim and Jon pulled in.We found out that we were all headed the same place so, experienced bc skiers that we are, we messed around with gear just long enough to let the others get a head start, just in case there was going to be trail breaking.  ;)  A brilliant blue sky day, pleasant in the sun but still quite chilly in the shade.

Skinning up the logging road, it appeared that trail breaking wouldn't be a problem, as there was a superhighway from the day before. When we got to the Henry Creek route ("Jim Hell" in lower snow conditions), however, all tracks except Jim's and Jon's continued up the road. We ended up following their tracks for a while, but then climbed up away from the ravine a bit until we could traverse to the base of the open slopes around 4000 feet. Except for the first few hundred feet above the logging road, the snow in the trees was nice, with maybe 6 inches of loose, cold, and non-dripped snow over a firm base.

We caught up to Jim and Jon at the sunny east-facing climb around the lower cliffs, but still managed to let Jim stay in the trail breaking lead. Jon was busy stripping down to shorts and t-shirt. The snow here was already getting moist on top, sure to crust over later in the day, but as we turned south again and skinned up the north-facing slopes the snow was still loose and cold.

It was a beautiful sight to see the completely untracked upper slopes of Jim Hill as we reached the 4800 foot bench. The grazing angle of the sun made for beautiful lighting but prevented any significant warming of the snow, which was cold, loose, and about 12 inches deep over a much more consolidated layer (the big dump of 10 days prior?). The four of us made our way up along the edge of the best lines to a 6300 foot notch in the north ridge coming off Jim Hill's summit. It was very chilly at the notch, with some east wind but a big plume of snow blowing of the summit of Jim Hill just a few hundred feet above. I think it was about 11:30 when we started down, and another group had just caught up with us, with a couple more making their way up our skin track.

The turns were fabulous! Everyone was trailing huge plumes of smoke as we skied the skier's left line back to 4800 feet, trying to conserve the powder for everyone else. The first couple of turns had very slight wind effect, but after that nothing but perfect powder, and we saw nothing to raise any avalanche concerns. Really fast turns produced some Cheneys, but mostly it was just one Clinton after another (you know, little white spots all over your clothes ;D ).

With four other groups now skinning up or starting to ski down, we figured we'd better head right back up if we wanted more untracked lines, so we followed the now-superhighway to just below our first notch, then traversed SE up to a 6400 foot notch in the ridge east of Jim Hill's summit. A beautiful spot, in the sun, windless, with views south into White Pine Creek and beyond to the Chiwaukums, Stuart Range, and more westerly to Mount Daniel with Mount Rainier in the distance. The view to the north included the Monte Cristos, the Sloan/Bedal/White Chuck triad, Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, and all kinds of wintery looking lesser peaks.

Skiing from the notch, the top 200 feet were more wind affected, slightly cohesive but very shallow (a few inches), but after that it was pretty much powdery cruising like the first run. On the lower part the scattered small trees made fun gates.

We left the 4800 foot bench, which had now become lunch and sunbathing central, at about 2:30 and had more fun cruising through the small trees on the powdery north-facing slopes. Instead of traversing out onto the crusting over east facing slopes, we tried to stay right in shaded snow, making our way through the cliff bands via little chutes - wouldn't want to try this in lower snow conditions. Below 4000 feet the snow was at first good in the big trees, but began to get pretty stiff from the morning sun effects and tree drip in the tighter small trees as we approached the logging road. Fast glide back to Highway 2. Our only real mistake of the day was forgetting that the ski area no longer has night skiing, and getting caught in the long procession of skiers returning from a day of lift skiing.

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