July 1, 2006, Klickitat, NFNWR

Inspiration for this trip came from the late Ben Manfredi. He and Charlie Berg skied this route for the first time in 1999. He would then repeat the route every year...Must be good!...Yesterday, Matt Church and I finally fulfilled our desires to ski this route. We took the "other" roads to the TH, but it seems the standard way should be snow-free now. Snow started below the meadows and became deeper at the PCT (we were able to ski to the upper meadow on the way out). We camped at the "big cairn" krumholtz camp, but will camp near the lake next time. The North Ridge was interesting and loose. The climb from our low camp took 6.5 hours. We saw lots of people on the summit and south summit from our perch on the west summit. Began our ski at 1:30. This was a great time for this day. 1" deep, soft snow for most of the ski. Near the exit, the snow became a bit deeper, catching the tails a bit. Time to adjust our technique!! Overall, the snow is starting to show texture (check second pic). Also, runnels are begining on the last steep pitch near the exit, but managable by skiing between them (check last pic). A great, committing, steep ski! Peace to Ben (thank you) and respect to all of his family and bro's.