April 8, 2007, Cannon Mountain Couloir
4/8/07
3183
5
Although it's been a week since Aaron and I fought our way to a ski descent of Cannon MTN couloir, the dried mud on the boots, the twigs embedded into my skins, and a couple photographs are all that is needed to remind thyself that it's not the destination but the journey...
OK, I take that back. It is the destination because if we hadn't reached the top of the couloir I think we may have spent many many hours walking and crawling through thickets of alder and negotiating treacherous slopes of downed timber only to be turned away once again. Yes, our second attempt at carving turns down the Cannon Mountain couloir proved successful, but not without a long fight.
Perfecting those alpine starts, we left the 8-mile turnoff around 9:00 am. The first 3-4 miles of the road was dirt. We slipped on the skins and made our way up to the Stuart Lake TH in about two hours time from the car. A bit more skinning and soon a maze of dense alder challenged our patience. But on we went...and oh that alder is lovely. We fought a couple battles, succumbing to the impassable twigs every now and then, but eventually made it to the big slide where we found enough snow to begin a comparatively easy climb. Of course, skinning up the ridge would have been way too easy, so instead we thought, "With so much daylight, why rush things?" I'll save the details but to keep a long story short, our turn-around time went from 3:30 to 4:00 to 4:30 ... to, "Well, if we're on that ridge up there and descending by 5:00 we should have plenty of time to get back to the road before dark."
Sometimes you just have to sit back and have faith that your partner knows best... Much to my amazement we attained the lower entrance to the main couloir just after 4:30. With moisture-laden and dark, menacing clouds blowing from the west, we dropped in and enjoyed some surprisingly pleasant spring conditions. With little time to spare though, we quickly climbed out of the couloir (where the lower section begins to really fan out) to begin our descent. Looking at my watch it was exactly 5:00. For another 1500 or so feet we found ourselves enjoying the soft snow and views of the Icicle valley far below as we descended the ridge we should have skinned up (and probably saving us a lot of time.) But soon the snow began to wither away, as did our hopes of a quick and easy descent. Instead of further altercations with the alder we thought it best to follow the snow as far as possible, which meant traversing one ridge over. Bad move. The next hour involved the painstaking job of carefully placing one foot in front of the other as we experienced first hand just how much downed timber exists on these burned hillsides.
By the time we reached the road even a light drizzle wasn't enough to spoil the moment though. Back to the car just after 8:00 PM, we managed to stumble into the best cuisine Leavenworth has to offer, Los Camperos, just before closing time.
Not many great pictures on this day. The first picture shows the couloir shortly after leaving the car. The second is Aaron making his way down the lower entrance to the main couloir as the third picture is looking up the main shot.
OK, I take that back. It is the destination because if we hadn't reached the top of the couloir I think we may have spent many many hours walking and crawling through thickets of alder and negotiating treacherous slopes of downed timber only to be turned away once again. Yes, our second attempt at carving turns down the Cannon Mountain couloir proved successful, but not without a long fight.
Perfecting those alpine starts, we left the 8-mile turnoff around 9:00 am. The first 3-4 miles of the road was dirt. We slipped on the skins and made our way up to the Stuart Lake TH in about two hours time from the car. A bit more skinning and soon a maze of dense alder challenged our patience. But on we went...and oh that alder is lovely. We fought a couple battles, succumbing to the impassable twigs every now and then, but eventually made it to the big slide where we found enough snow to begin a comparatively easy climb. Of course, skinning up the ridge would have been way too easy, so instead we thought, "With so much daylight, why rush things?" I'll save the details but to keep a long story short, our turn-around time went from 3:30 to 4:00 to 4:30 ... to, "Well, if we're on that ridge up there and descending by 5:00 we should have plenty of time to get back to the road before dark."
Sometimes you just have to sit back and have faith that your partner knows best... Much to my amazement we attained the lower entrance to the main couloir just after 4:30. With moisture-laden and dark, menacing clouds blowing from the west, we dropped in and enjoyed some surprisingly pleasant spring conditions. With little time to spare though, we quickly climbed out of the couloir (where the lower section begins to really fan out) to begin our descent. Looking at my watch it was exactly 5:00. For another 1500 or so feet we found ourselves enjoying the soft snow and views of the Icicle valley far below as we descended the ridge we should have skinned up (and probably saving us a lot of time.) But soon the snow began to wither away, as did our hopes of a quick and easy descent. Instead of further altercations with the alder we thought it best to follow the snow as far as possible, which meant traversing one ridge over. Bad move. The next hour involved the painstaking job of carefully placing one foot in front of the other as we experienced first hand just how much downed timber exists on these burned hillsides.
By the time we reached the road even a light drizzle wasn't enough to spoil the moment though. Back to the car just after 8:00 PM, we managed to stumble into the best cuisine Leavenworth has to offer, Los Camperos, just before closing time.
Not many great pictures on this day. The first picture shows the couloir shortly after leaving the car. The second is Aaron making his way down the lower entrance to the main couloir as the third picture is looking up the main shot.
I also did Cannon Mt. Couloir this spring, about March 20th or 21st. we dropped in from the tippy top, and snowboarded all the way down to mountaineer creek for a nearly 5000' descent, the longest vert run of my life :D
It was 2-3" of creamy nice fresh atop a smooth firm stable base. turned to rain at the rock garden at the bottom of the bowl below the couloir.
We left the car at 7a @ bridge creek. got to the top about 2p, and got back to the car @5p. my buddy had a splitboard w/ skins and i had snowshoes, but the morning snow was firm, so I used the 'shoes for only about 30 minutes all day[ the logging road section].
Crossing the creek on a log 10 feet above the raging creek on our butts with branches sticking up, while holding our boards with backpacks on was the hard part, well that and the 6000' gain ;)
NICE JOB
It was 2-3" of creamy nice fresh atop a smooth firm stable base. turned to rain at the rock garden at the bottom of the bowl below the couloir.
We left the car at 7a @ bridge creek. got to the top about 2p, and got back to the car @5p. my buddy had a splitboard w/ skins and i had snowshoes, but the morning snow was firm, so I used the 'shoes for only about 30 minutes all day[ the logging road section].
Crossing the creek on a log 10 feet above the raging creek on our butts with branches sticking up, while holding our boards with backpacks on was the hard part, well that and the 6000' gain ;)
NICE JOB
author=Spin Fast link=topic=6864.msg27584#msg27584 date=1176684159]
Perfecting those alpine starts, we left the 8-mile turnoff around 9:00 am. The first 3-4 miles of the road was dirt. We slipped on the skins and made our way up to the Stuart Lake TH in about two hours time from the car.
Sometimes you just have to sit back and have faith that your partner knows best... Much to my amazement we attained the lower entrance to the main couloir just after 4:30.
It took five and a half hours to get to the couloir from the Stuart Lake TH!?!?
Not sure how you went, but there is a better way :-). From what I recall it was a pretty straightforward ascent that only took a couple of hours. We continued on the abandoned road that climbs NE from the trailhead (there was one washout that was a pain to cross), and eventually emerged into an open burn which was easy skinning to the base of the couloir. I don't recall any bushwhacking, but there may have been a deeper snowpack than there is now.
There's definitely a better way. Go when there's enough snow. Right now, it's so thin that the road in is a major slide alder schwack and above that is an unappetizing mix of jumbled logs intermixed with punchy, rotten snow for about the first 1,500' (above which you can skin). That said, we were told that somebody made the descent the day prior to ours by coming in over the top, via Asgard Pass. That approach may have been longer, but I'll bet it was more enjoyable overall, because negotiating the downed timber on the way out was less fun than church on a powder day.
Spinfast- I was wondering who the other sick bastard was that got it into his/her head to head up there with conditions as they were. Pretty sweet views, though, eh? Yeah, now's probably not the best time to ski it. My brother and I went in there on sunday and didn't find boot-packable snow until roughly 4500'. Pretty nasty bit of uphil drudgery without a snowpack ;)
author=ryanl link=topic=6864.msg27655#msg27655 date=1176791985]
Spinfast- I was wondering who the other sick bastard was that got it into his/her head to head up there with conditions as they were. Pretty sweet views, though, eh? Yeah, now's probably not the best time to ski it. My brother and I went in there on sunday and didn't find boot-packable snow until roughly 4500'. Pretty nasty bit of uphil drudgery without a snowpack ;)
Someone once told me I was crazy because I liked to hike up a mountain and ski down. Guess we're all sick bastards!
We made this trip a bit harder than it needed it to be for sure...live and learn I guess. Dropping in for those first turns erased much of the agony though.
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