March 22-26, 2003, Hoodoo Pass Sawtooth Wildernes

My friend Rick and I planned to go for 4-5 days of sunny
spring skiing in the Sawtooth Wilderness east of Lake Chelan
starting Saturday, March 22nd. The plan was to take his
snowmobile up the forest service roads to the East Fork of
Buttermilk creek over Hoodoo Pass then ski up towards Star
Peak and Fish Creek Pass and then come down the West Fork of
Buttermilk Creek and cross over back into the East Fork for
a nice loop.

Well, Saturday brought a winter storm warning of 6" to 10"
of snow, high winds, plunging temperatures, increasing
avalanche danger and general consternation on our part. We
anxiously watched the dark clouds over the mountains from
Rick's yurt between Twisp and Winthrop but things seemed to
clear up a bit by 11am and we decided to head in. The
snowmobile ride was my first and it certainly didn't get me
excited about spending any more time on one of these things
than needed to get to skiing. We left the sled at the start
of the East Fork road (4800') at around 1pm and after
adequate futzing started skinning up the road - always lots
of fun. We skinned into the Sawtooth Wilderness area along
the road which eventually turned into a wide trail suitable
for stock. That made it relatively easy to follow in the
dense woods.

It started to snow on us after about an hour up the road as
we broke trail in 2" to 4" of light powder. Since we had a
borrowed a tent we decided to stop around 4:30 at (5600') to
set up camp in the daylight and try to find running
water. The calendar might have said spring but everything
else said mid-winter as the temps dropped into the low 20s
and the snow continued to drop periodically. We both hadn't
done much winter camping in the past few years and started
to remember all of the little tricks that makes things go
easier.

We woke up on Sunday to cloudy skies, winds in the trees and
periodic snow. We packed up and continued up the trail
towards Hoodoo Pass. We gained elevation to a few hundered
feet below the pass (7400'), dug a pit and found many easy
slide layers from 8" to 2.5'. Rick went up the pass first
and struggled with snow that continued to slide away under
his skins. Very painful. After watching his struggles, I
tried a different tack by postholing up to get closer to the
rocks with the idea that the keeping all the snow below
would be a "good idea". Unfortunately, the deposition on the
pass was pretty severe and was wallowing up to my hips and
after 10 minutes of struggle I put the skiis back on
followed Rick's tracks. I got up with a struggle and we then
pulled off our skins in the howling wind and picked our way
down through rock bands towards Boiling Lake. We only
dropped down a few hundred feet before we found a clump of
trees that offered some wind protection. We dug out a tent
platform next to a large boulder and set up camp. After all
the work is was now 3:30 and things were getting colder
fast. We decided to make dinner and hope for better weather
the next day. Rick's thermometer registered 0 degrees that
night and my camelback kept freezing no matter what I did
unless I brought inside my bag.

Monday was finally a bluebird day and we headed off in the
sun towards Star Peak. We climbed the ridge to the west and
then dropped down and enjoyed some really nice powder. We
traversed into Dry Lake basin, put out skins back on and
climbed up to the ridge south of Lake Bernice. Star Peak was
far in the distance and it was clear that we would not get
anywhere near there today. Instead we enjoyed lunch in the
sunshine and calm and checked out the area. After lunch we
dropped back into Dry Lake basis again enjoying nice powder
and then traversed back towards camp. We skinned back up to
the ridge as we watched the weather deteriorate again,
clouds raced in from the west and the wind began to pick
up. We dropped into our basin with more nice snow and headed
back to camp. All of the cold temps and melting of snow had
used up most of the 1L of fuel that we'd brought so we built
a fire to melt some snow. That was a smokey affair but it
got us some water. Snow began to fall again and we retired
to our sleeping bags and cooked dinner. We agreed to head
out on Tuesday unless things cleared up.

Tuesday morning was cloudy again so we packed up and headed
up and over Hoodoo Pass. The ski down the pass into the
steep but sparse tree was glorious powder - even with our
full packs. We found our up track and had a blast following
it back through the powder in the trees; it was really fun.
We skated on the road to get back to the snowmobile in under
3 hours; fired up the snowmobile and headed back out.

Overall a fun trip even if we didn't get the sun and turns
we were hoping for...