Home > Trip Reports > April 20, 2008, ONP Appleton Pass Blower Pow

April 20, 2008, ONP Appleton Pass Blower Pow

4/20/08
WA Olympics
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Posted by Animal on 4/21/08 1:06pm
:)  Tony, Randy, Susie, and myself all skied up to Appleton Pass in Olympic National Park this last weekend.  It was 14 degrees Sunday morning with over two feet of blower pow all around us.  the previous night it snowed very hard.  in a one hour period we received five inches.  The skiing the next day was very good.  We had to stick to lower gradient stuff because of the avi danger.  Wow it was nice skiing within the Olympics.  It was definitely worth the 7.7 mile approach ski.
Nice! Kicking myself in the butt for not going as H. R. was closed Sunday. Looks like some great ski runs up there.

That's a nice ways in!  Nice tr, those pics are great!

Thanks for the TR and beautiful pics.  Where do you approach this route from and where did you camp?  I would like to try that trip soon.  Nice to see the Olympics get some attention too.

We started at the trail head where you would normally use if your were going to go to the Olympic Hot Springs, and we bacically followed the path the trail uses.  it was fin to try to actually stay over the trail.  It was about a 7.7 mile approach ski through awesome old growth.  The Olympics are good.  My friend Tony tried to ski the Baily Range two weeks ago, and had an adventure attempting this trip.  There is a lot of snow up there so the skiing should be good for a while!

VERY NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is what I asked tony about more snow since they stayed an extra day.  Might be of interest!

Tony,
    Did you get much additional snow on Sunday night.  Randy and myself skied out in 3.5 hours.  the areas where we skied through the woods our tracks were hard to follow.  When we reached the car it was snowing hard.

Thanks for coming it was a good trip.  I posted it on Turns All Year.

Kevin,
    Are you kidding it snowed as hard and maybe longer than the day before! There was another 18-24" or about 4' of Blower Pow total. The tarp was great I had to build the walls in so I could constantly knock off snow with out getting covered every time. I stayed up until dark knocking snow off the tent and tarp.
    That night after you guys left we headed back up our track to the big open slope you went on and turned back. We headed back down and I stopped and found a sweet 400' run of the 35-40 degree and fluffy blower on a NNE aspect, more like our runs at Heart Lake. I think in retrospect we could have gotten better skiing with Randy if we had focused on the Pow and not the Pass. Still it was great to get up there.
    The next morning it was 15 degrees, and as we headed out we heard a a large thunder and observed a slide on the steep slope above the valley below us. It didn't propagate all the way though. It was really loud though, freaked me out cause Susie was already starting down! She was not below it however. You know they didn't open the ridge due to avalanche danger.
It was so much work coming down breaking trail, my ski tips buried almost all the time. Your tracks were almost completely gone in a lot places. It took us 8 hrs to get out.
    A very hard, rewarding trip.
    It was a very special time to be up there. Very few can appreciate the work and pain it takes to experience what we did.
    I look forward to future trips with you guys.
    Good work on the TurnsAllYear.com post.
Tony

Animal,
Welcome.
Just noticed this report from last week.  As an avid proponent of Olympic skiing I have to commend you guys for taking on  a serious tour that few others have done. Thanks for sharing.


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Animal
2008-04-21 20:06:42