June 1, 2002, Snowking
6/1/02
2660
0
The road is blocked by a washout about 1.5 miles from the "trail"-head. Turns this from a big day trip into somewhat of an epic. The climber/fisherman trail is snow-free up to about 4,000 ft, where continuous snow starts with very little transition zone in-between. This is nice because this is where the forest gets a little less steep. A compass and altimeter were a big help in navigating the snowy forest up to the saddle.
Skip and slogged upwards and upwards and upwards, and then upwards some more. We pretty much nailed the saddle with only a little elevation loss (looks tough to do it w/o dropping a little). At this point, the views started to open up. The ridge romp over to Cyclone lake is glorious, though very upsy-downsy. On the way back we found that we could easily skip some of the ups and downs, and on a return trip I'd try to bypass even a little more of it.
We opted to climb clockwise around the lake, despite clear tracks coming down to the other side of the lake. Looked less committing and given our 6:30AM start we knew we'd be running into some soft and maybe sliding snow. This route went with no difficulty - plenty of room to avoid the very striking cornices on this ridge.
Up up up and up some more. Skip was starting to slow down, but I had summit fever. But I tried to rest up and let him catch up often - seemed wise on such a remote trip.
We made the summit a little over 8 hours after leaving the car, which included a few nice breaks to regroup a bit. In the future I'd leave the ice axe and crampons at home on a warm day this time of year.
We hung on the summit for a little while and headed down at about 3:30. I set of a small wet pocket slab right below the summit on a little wind roll, but otherwise the snow seemed quite stable all the way down.
Due the lateness of the day, the snow was a bit on the mushy side, but the turns were great nonetheless. No deep mush anywhere - we always had a very firm base. The skiing was fantastic right down to the wooded saddle, and passable from there to where we hung our lightweight hiking boots from a tree. It would suck to miss this critical point where the snow ends and the trail begins - altimeter and compass once again came in handy.
We stumbled to the van at about 9PM, milking the day rather well with many strategic rest stops. We saw one skier heading down as we went up, and a group of three settling into camp at cyclone lake as we headed out. Otherwise it seemed like there was no one else in the world for this day.
Jim
Skip and slogged upwards and upwards and upwards, and then upwards some more. We pretty much nailed the saddle with only a little elevation loss (looks tough to do it w/o dropping a little). At this point, the views started to open up. The ridge romp over to Cyclone lake is glorious, though very upsy-downsy. On the way back we found that we could easily skip some of the ups and downs, and on a return trip I'd try to bypass even a little more of it.
We opted to climb clockwise around the lake, despite clear tracks coming down to the other side of the lake. Looked less committing and given our 6:30AM start we knew we'd be running into some soft and maybe sliding snow. This route went with no difficulty - plenty of room to avoid the very striking cornices on this ridge.
Up up up and up some more. Skip was starting to slow down, but I had summit fever. But I tried to rest up and let him catch up often - seemed wise on such a remote trip.
We made the summit a little over 8 hours after leaving the car, which included a few nice breaks to regroup a bit. In the future I'd leave the ice axe and crampons at home on a warm day this time of year.
We hung on the summit for a little while and headed down at about 3:30. I set of a small wet pocket slab right below the summit on a little wind roll, but otherwise the snow seemed quite stable all the way down.
Due the lateness of the day, the snow was a bit on the mushy side, but the turns were great nonetheless. No deep mush anywhere - we always had a very firm base. The skiing was fantastic right down to the wooded saddle, and passable from there to where we hung our lightweight hiking boots from a tree. It would suck to miss this critical point where the snow ends and the trail begins - altimeter and compass once again came in handy.
We stumbled to the van at about 9PM, milking the day rather well with many strategic rest stops. We saw one skier heading down as we went up, and a group of three settling into camp at cyclone lake as we headed out. Otherwise it seemed like there was no one else in the world for this day.
Jim
Reply to this TR
Please login first: