June 16 and 17, 2006, Tumalo Mtn.

The plan for the week was to ski the South Sister and I took Friday off work to do so.  My friend Matt also bailed on work Friday and met me Thursday night at Devil's Lake.  The weather was spotty and the snow forced us down to Hosmer Lake to set up camp.  After spending Memorial Day weekend camped in a snowstorm above Moraine Lake on a failed summit attempt, I had no desire to camp in snow this time. 

We woke at 0500 Friday morning and hit the road.  The weather worsened as we approached Devil's Lake and we decided to bag the South Sister and head to Bachelor.  We hit Dutchman Flat Sno Park at around 0600 and debated whether we were going to do Bachelor or Tumalo.  Neither of us really wanted to climb under lifts so we settled for Tumalo.  We started climbing at 0630.  The trees provided shelter from the continuous rain and wind until we reached the glade below the summit.  We pressed on to the summit in miserable conditions and never actually saw the top of the mountain until we were standing on it.  Visibility was awful.  Not only did we not have a view of the surrounding landscape, but we couldn't even see the bottom of the bowl.  After a short break we dropped in expecting marginal snow conditions.  Surprisingly, the snow was excellent considering the rainy conditions and the bowl offered a welcome reprieve from the pounding wind.  We yoyo'd the bowl three times and traversed out on our final run, taking a nice tree run back to the parking area.  We headed back to camp and Matt headed home shortly thereafter.

I stayed one more night through intermittent rain and woke Saturday morning to bluebird skies and ice on the rainfly of my tent.  I downed a pot of coffee, broke camp, and drove down to Lava Lake for supplies (candy bars).  I headed back toward Devil's Lake and contemplated the South Sister once again, but I needed to be home that afternoon so I headed back to Tumalo.  I got a later start than the day before, which worked out perfectly.  I put my skis down on frozen snow and started skinning.  The conditions varied from frozen crust to ice and made for slow going, but I reached the summit by 0930 and wasted little time dropping into the bowl.  The snow was absolutely perfect corn.  There were some gnarly sun cups along the western edge of the bowl, but the snow was smooth and perfect out in the middle.  I packed back up to the summit and took time to snack on a couple of Snickers, take some pictures, and enjoy the sunshine.  I dropped in for one more great run and contoured out of the bowl to the west.  I wanted one more go at it, but my whole body was starting to cramp, so I traversed around and took a fast tree run all the way to the parking area and headed home.  I regret not hitting the South Sister, but with my schedule I can't complain about getting in turns on two consecutive days.