June 7, 2006, Fortune Mountain, Teanaway

It looks like the report from last weekend gave several people this idea - thanks for posting Michael! The snow was still good for turns and the short approach was welcome. Andy and I hiked up the Esmeralda trail, then headed up a mostly bare steeper S-facing slope before getting to the stream coming from the SE bowl of Fortune. At the top of that slope, around 5200, we could have started skinning but it seemed easier to boot. At the base of the bowl, around 5600, the snow became continuous and we started skinning, though our experience later suggested that it would have been at least as easy to boot all day and leave the skins at home.

Here's a photo of the lower part of the SE bowl, from around 5800:


And here's one of the upper part of the SE bowl,:


At the top of the SE bowl there was a little passage of snow connecting over the divide to the snowy north side (Ingalls Creek drainage), around 7100 feet. It was possible to stay on snow to within 25vf of the top of Fortune, which was completely bare. Forget about skiing the south slope from the top - bare for a long way down. Here's a photo of Andy coming to the end of the snow near the top, with a nice view of Mount Stuart and the Ingalls Creek valley:


We hung out for quite a while on top, taking in the great views. It had been mostly sunny but not hot on the way up, but some clouds were forming to our SE and we had mostly cloud shadow for our first three runs. To the west we could see the low level stratus flowing through the low spots on the Crest (Dutch Miller Gap, Deception Pass). For our first run we skied a NE slope on the Ingalls Creek side of the divide - nicely steep at the top, a couple of inches of soft over a good base. We booted back to the 7100 foot crossover and skied the top of the SE bowl - same good conditions. Then we booted back to the 7100 foot crossover and skied the NE slope again. Then once again back to the ridge to ski the SE bowl and on out to the end of the snow. The sun came out before our last run and stayed until we were back at the car - that really brought out the beauty of the place. The real skiing ended around 5600 feet, but with picking our way through the forest and a bit of all-terrain skiing we were able to traverse skier's left and down to 5000 feet before hoisting the skis. We found that we were 15 feet from a major trail (Ingalls Pass?) and the last 600 feet back to the car went quickly.