March 16, 2007, Crystal Mtn to Naches Pass traverse

3/16/07

WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)

2825

2

Posted by Lowell_Skoog on 3/17/07 5:19am

Paul Ekman crosses Lake Basin early on the Crystal Mountain to Naches Pass traverse.

After I skied the last winter and I knew he was an experienced and efficient skier. Paul has done many trips in these areas and he already had some of the crest routes on his to-do list.

My top priority was the segment from Crystal Mountain to Naches Pass, a route of about 24 miles. I wanted to ski it before the Pyramid Creek road (FS-70) melted out too much. This region is in the snow-shadow of Mount Rainier, and it melts out before other parts of the crest farther north. After the rain last weekend, the Cascade snowpack is no longer significantly above normal.

Paul and I settled on Friday, March 16, for our attempt. We crossed our fingers that the cold weather mid-week had frozen the wet snowpack deeply. We watched the weather forecasts until the last moment, hoping for a brief window of decent weather. We were rewarded with a day that far exceeded our expectations.

Mount Rainier from Point 6373 ("Martinson Point") about one-third of the way into the trip.

At 3 a.m. Paul and I drove separately from Seattle, meeting in Greenwater. We parked Paul's car at the Pyramid Creek Sno-Park and drove mine to Crystal Mountain. By 6 a.m. we were underway, skinning up East Peak by headlamp. We found excellent snow conditions. Wednesday's cold storm had firmed up the base. An inch of new snow on top, wetted by the rising freezing levels, provided good traction for climbing and traversing.

We removed our skins at Scout Pass and traversed Lake Basin, Big Crow Basin, and Little Crow Basin without skins on an efficient, high-level contour. Paul motored along on his fish-scale nordic skis. On my alpine skis, I negotiated the ups and downs with side-stepping and "stiction." We reached Martinson Gap by 9:30 a.m., putting the steep, sunny slopes behind us. Thanks to our early start, we encountered none of the whumping slopes reported by Joedabaker later that day near Crown Point.

As we traveled northward, the crest gradually descended and became more forested. We saw no trail markers except the sign at Louisiana Saddle shown in the photo below. I bought a GPS recently, and Paul and I compared readings on our two units as we went. The GPS proved very helpful. Navigating the wooded crest on snow with no visible reference points would have been slow and difficult. The GPS made it easy.

The snow on the Cascade Crest is still deep. We enjoyed the quiet and solitude of skiing through one of the few old-growth forests in this section of the range. By 3:15 p.m. we reached the Naches Pass snowmobile trail system, and at 5:30 p.m., after walking 1-1/2 miles of melted-out road, we reached Paul's car. The return shuttle was short and sweet.

With the completion of this trip, I've skied from Mount Baker to Glacier Peak and roughly from Mount Daniel to Mount Rainier. The final focus of my "Cascade Quest" is the section between Glacier Peak and Mount Daniel.

Paul Ekman inspects a trail sign at Louisiana Saddle.

[Edited title - Charles]

3/17/07 10:17am

joedabaker

Awesome trip guys!
To get to 1 1/2 miles from the car with snow is really quiet good.
Did you encounter much cliff action in the forested area to detour the planned trail?
Did you keep the GPS on the entire trip? If so what were the trip totals?
Often times the accuracy of my GPS is somewhat plus or minus 50 feet especially in dense trees where the signal gets limited.
Congratulations on your accomplishment.
Joe

3/17/07 11:38am

lowell_skoog

Hi Joe,

The key to skiing low on the Pyramid Creek road system is to take FS-7065, which forks left off FS-70 about 1.5 miles above the sno-park and then rejoins it about 2.5 miles higher. The USGS 7.5 minute topo doesn't show this road connecting, but it does. It is the most popular route for snowmobilers, because it is north facing and holds snow longer. FS-70 ascends a SW facing slope above the Greenwater river between 3200-3400 feet. This section gets a lot of sun and melts out sooner.

We didn't have any cliff-out problems. We basically followed the Crest Trail route but much of the time we couldn't detect it. We only hit one section of unpleasantly tight trees, about 1-1/2 miles NE of Martinson Gap. I don't know where the trail went in that section.

I turned on my GPS at Scout Pass. Paul ran his the whole time. I haven't learned how to get totals from the GPS, but TOPO! says 21.4 miles (I correct this by a factor of 1.13, to 24 miles), with 3900 feet of climbing.

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