June 16 Eagle Point, Olympics

My wife, Sidnie, and I took advantage of the partial opening of the Obstruction Point Road to access some of our beloved Olympic terrain.  The road is only open to Waterhole, about 3.5 miles from the end. At the road closure we met another skier who had a mountain bike with a small engine.  He took off and, amazingly, seemed to ride the bike across all the snow patches and disappeared up the road.  From the road closure we hiked through patches of snow along the road as it climbed 1.5 miles and 1,000 ft to Eagle Point, a 6200 ft peak.  The weather was high overcast with cloud occasionally limiting visibility to a few yards.  As we reached the peak it began to snow grauple and the cloud filled the north facing bowls of the peak.  Skiing a steep slope we didn't climb in a whiteout was not appealling, so we decided to try a W facing slope that still was well covered.  All the south and east facing slopes were completely melted out but this slope had just enough west aspect to hold a lot of snow. The slope was actually a  bowl bounded by a sharp ridge on the east and three distinct gullies filled with  avalanche enhanced snow.  They all terminated in a stream bed at 4500 ft.

As is often the case in the Olympics, the upper slopes are moderate angle and become progressively steeper as they roll over into forest.  We skied the middle gully which started out at 35 degrees and then rolled to 40 degrees as it entered widely spaced trees.  The snow was firm corn and skied well except for areas of moderate runnels.  After descending 800ft we stopped at a bench and climbed back out for another lap.  The second run we continued past the bench to a 45 degree slope that skied really well through well spaced trees and ended above a stream bed at 4600 ft. The climb out involved boot crampons  and went well back to the road at 6,000 ft. The first mile of the road had good almost continuous snow and required only three carries.  The last mile was sparse patches and I opted to switch back to trail shoes .  Sidnie, ever the skier, skied every patch the rest of the way back to the car, including a three foot wide strip filling the uphill ditch of the road.  Both of our skis were pretty pollinated but not as bad as it can be.   

The north slopes still have a lot of snow and should be good for another few weeks.  The road approach is easy ( especially if you have a motorized mountain bike,) A good tour except for another pre-release on my Dynafits. Whats with that?