May 23, 2007, McCloughlin, OR
5/23/07
OR elsewhere
2390
1
I had a nice day - although my alpine start was nixed. Long 3 + hour drive from Sunriver, a couple stops for directions and bfast, and was on the trail by 11. Hwy 140 takes you to the SSE side of the Mtn, turn into the Summit Trail snopark entrance and go straight up forest rd 3650 for 2-3 mi. I was able to get to within 3/4 mi of the TH. There are 2 McCloughlin TH signs, the first big blue sign you see goes east - wrongo! Take the "McCloughlin Summit" TH west - 5.5mi to the top, which is further near the main parking lot. The skis had an easy day since I carried them a bunch - bare easy trail for 1.5mi - only 3 blowdowns to hop - skis on for a while - easy uphill through the forest for a couple more miles using a Mag course of 275/270 gets you to steepening terrain - yes, I had to use the Compass/gps exclusively - trail markings are limited - no blue diamonds here! After the mtn is in sight (approx 7400')- I climbed the left ridgeline to the top. (skis on the back again)
Skins w/crampons would be the ticket for the last 2000'. Was able to get some fine turns in on about 2" of butter. Following the most enticing fall line takes you off course, away from the climbing ridge - so, after a dozen fast G/S turns, contour left. Once in the forest - I depended on GPS waypoints taken earlier to get back. Mag course of 090/095. :) I will post my photos - soon as I figure out how to get the file size to 100K.
Skins w/crampons would be the ticket for the last 2000'. Was able to get some fine turns in on about 2" of butter. Following the most enticing fall line takes you off course, away from the climbing ridge - so, after a dozen fast G/S turns, contour left. Once in the forest - I depended on GPS waypoints taken earlier to get back. Mag course of 090/095. :) I will post my photos - soon as I figure out how to get the file size to 100K.
Aha! I wondered how small this BC ski world really is.
We were up there the next day apparently. And with all those nice footprints, didn't need the compass to get up there! Wednesday was plenty warm, so we had nice soft edgeable snow even with our impressive 8:30 AM "alpine" start (we had a place to stay in Medford.) We took our time skinning up but made the first (falsie) summit around 1:30.
We were unable to resist taking all of the possible turns down the bigger SW chute and ended up pretty far down past our ascent route. And although we knew a heading of due east would get us to FR 3650, we got lazy and let the slope pull us too far south. When we hit a well marked cross country blue diamond trail, we made the bigger error of assuming that following it downward would intersect us with the approach road or trail. Heh. It kept curving right when we wanted left, and didn't lose elevation fast enough, but after an hour of that we were reluctant to backtrack.
An hour or so later, when the trail ended at a nice dirt road (not the one we were parked on, though) we elected to follow it rather than go back, since it just HAD to get out to HWY 140 sooner or later, and if it got dark we figured a road was better than the trail. Also, our passage though the evil blue diamond trail of deception had aroused the bloodlust of ALL of the mosquitoes in Oregon, so we did not want to go back through.
Another hour or so on the road got us almost out to the highway, where a nice couple in a beat up van full of "x-ray chemicals" gave us a ride back to the car. I would speculate about sketchy-driving with-a-beer-and-a-smoke-and-a-van-full-of-chemicals locals, but since they gave us a 5+ mile ride after we walked 10ish miles out of our way I am calling them legit. Before I got in the van I wondered for a second about getting killed but I was so exhausted I figured that (a) they could just kill us there and then and (b) if I could just sit in the van away from the mosquitoes and sun for a bit, I would be better rested to fight them off. Anyway, they were awesome for getting us to our car, and I would gladly testify that they were just looking for morels, like the innocent citizens they were.
We took the long way back to Seattle via Crater Lake, where the road around had just opened to the North entrance, and I now have to figure out how to get back down there soon enough to ski all of that!
Jon
-Just noticed the date, and maybe you were up there after us? Didn't see any other cars on the way out but we were pretty late after our "bonus hike" so maybe you made it out first, but we saw a fair amount of skin and boot tracks up high so maybe you meant the 22nd? My Subaru was parked next to the first biggish patch of snow blocking the road- some big trucks had made it through before us but I tried and just about got stuck, and figured it would be worse later in the day.
We were up there the next day apparently. And with all those nice footprints, didn't need the compass to get up there! Wednesday was plenty warm, so we had nice soft edgeable snow even with our impressive 8:30 AM "alpine" start (we had a place to stay in Medford.) We took our time skinning up but made the first (falsie) summit around 1:30.
We were unable to resist taking all of the possible turns down the bigger SW chute and ended up pretty far down past our ascent route. And although we knew a heading of due east would get us to FR 3650, we got lazy and let the slope pull us too far south. When we hit a well marked cross country blue diamond trail, we made the bigger error of assuming that following it downward would intersect us with the approach road or trail. Heh. It kept curving right when we wanted left, and didn't lose elevation fast enough, but after an hour of that we were reluctant to backtrack.
An hour or so later, when the trail ended at a nice dirt road (not the one we were parked on, though) we elected to follow it rather than go back, since it just HAD to get out to HWY 140 sooner or later, and if it got dark we figured a road was better than the trail. Also, our passage though the evil blue diamond trail of deception had aroused the bloodlust of ALL of the mosquitoes in Oregon, so we did not want to go back through.
Another hour or so on the road got us almost out to the highway, where a nice couple in a beat up van full of "x-ray chemicals" gave us a ride back to the car. I would speculate about sketchy-driving with-a-beer-and-a-smoke-and-a-van-full-of-chemicals locals, but since they gave us a 5+ mile ride after we walked 10ish miles out of our way I am calling them legit. Before I got in the van I wondered for a second about getting killed but I was so exhausted I figured that (a) they could just kill us there and then and (b) if I could just sit in the van away from the mosquitoes and sun for a bit, I would be better rested to fight them off. Anyway, they were awesome for getting us to our car, and I would gladly testify that they were just looking for morels, like the innocent citizens they were.
We took the long way back to Seattle via Crater Lake, where the road around had just opened to the North entrance, and I now have to figure out how to get back down there soon enough to ski all of that!
Jon
-Just noticed the date, and maybe you were up there after us? Didn't see any other cars on the way out but we were pretty late after our "bonus hike" so maybe you made it out first, but we saw a fair amount of skin and boot tracks up high so maybe you meant the 22nd? My Subaru was parked next to the first biggish patch of snow blocking the road- some big trucks had made it through before us but I tried and just about got stuck, and figured it would be worse later in the day.
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