Jan 21 Welcome Pass
1/15/08
2762
1
Hello!
Long-time lurker, infrequent poster, total nOOb teleskier here to write my first ever trip report on this board, so be gentle :)
Since none of my overnight trips worked out for the weekend, I decided to jump on a friend's snowshoe trip to Welcome Pass. In order to make it more interesting, I entertained the idea that the 3 skiers in the group would drop a car at the excelsior trail to facilitate a loop, while the 4 snowshoers would be doing an out and back trip. Things didn't quite work out according to my vision, but more on that later....
Since I had previously snowshoed up both trails, I figured that skiing up to Welcome Pass and down from Excelsior would be easiest, with the open ridge traverse between the two being the best part of the trip for views.
The excelsior lot is plowed out, so we had no problem dropping a car off there. There is a plowed spot across 542 from the road leading up the the Welcome Pass trailhead. Careful parking could probably fit about 5 cars if needed.
No problems were encountered skinning up the road to the trailhead. Once on the summer trail, the snow is deep enough to skin easily as well. There are a couple of tricky stream crossings, but only one demanded de-skiing. There is a huge gully filled with giant avi debris to be crossed at 2800ft, and one blowdown to be managed. After that, it's pretty good going until the trail steepens at 3200ft. I found the ever steepening trail increasingly difficult to skin up, and finally decided to give up and quit being stubborn. Skis on pack, booting up from 3200, all the way to the pass at 5200. The last 1000 feet was a postholing nightmare, taking too much time. I figured we wouldn't have time to complete the loop, and I was right :( We dragged our exhausted bodies up to a high point east of the pass, and collapsed to take in the views.
Other than the tracks made by our snowshoeing friends, the surrounding landscape was completely untouched, no snowmobile tracks this time!
I would have liked to spend time cruising up and down the virgin slopes, but the daylight hours are too few in January, so after a break for food and views, we headed back down. Brian was able to ski most of the trail down steeply through the trees, but my lack of ski prowess had me booting down a lot of it (quite icy in spots!)
Not quite the glorious loop trip I had planned, but it was a beautiful day to be out, and I'll be back when the days are longer!
I guess I'm too lame to figure out how to post any pics, but here is a link to some Welcome Pass pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32121172@N00/
And here is a link to some low quality videos from the day:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=dicey55
Thanks for reading!
Long-time lurker, infrequent poster, total nOOb teleskier here to write my first ever trip report on this board, so be gentle :)
Since none of my overnight trips worked out for the weekend, I decided to jump on a friend's snowshoe trip to Welcome Pass. In order to make it more interesting, I entertained the idea that the 3 skiers in the group would drop a car at the excelsior trail to facilitate a loop, while the 4 snowshoers would be doing an out and back trip. Things didn't quite work out according to my vision, but more on that later....
Since I had previously snowshoed up both trails, I figured that skiing up to Welcome Pass and down from Excelsior would be easiest, with the open ridge traverse between the two being the best part of the trip for views.
The excelsior lot is plowed out, so we had no problem dropping a car off there. There is a plowed spot across 542 from the road leading up the the Welcome Pass trailhead. Careful parking could probably fit about 5 cars if needed.
No problems were encountered skinning up the road to the trailhead. Once on the summer trail, the snow is deep enough to skin easily as well. There are a couple of tricky stream crossings, but only one demanded de-skiing. There is a huge gully filled with giant avi debris to be crossed at 2800ft, and one blowdown to be managed. After that, it's pretty good going until the trail steepens at 3200ft. I found the ever steepening trail increasingly difficult to skin up, and finally decided to give up and quit being stubborn. Skis on pack, booting up from 3200, all the way to the pass at 5200. The last 1000 feet was a postholing nightmare, taking too much time. I figured we wouldn't have time to complete the loop, and I was right :( We dragged our exhausted bodies up to a high point east of the pass, and collapsed to take in the views.
Other than the tracks made by our snowshoeing friends, the surrounding landscape was completely untouched, no snowmobile tracks this time!
I would have liked to spend time cruising up and down the virgin slopes, but the daylight hours are too few in January, so after a break for food and views, we headed back down. Brian was able to ski most of the trail down steeply through the trees, but my lack of ski prowess had me booting down a lot of it (quite icy in spots!)
Not quite the glorious loop trip I had planned, but it was a beautiful day to be out, and I'll be back when the days are longer!
I guess I'm too lame to figure out how to post any pics, but here is a link to some Welcome Pass pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32121172@N00/
And here is a link to some low quality videos from the day:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=dicey55
Thanks for reading!
Cool TR, thanks for sharing! Welcome Pass is a great place. Nice work getting up there; I've only been there in the summer, but I recall that trail being relentlessly steep in the upper section.
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