 Turns-All-Year backcountry skiing in the Pacific NorthwestBackcountry Skiing and Snowboarding Trip Reports |
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| This old version of Trip Reports is no longer being updated. It is being kept as an archive of ~340 backcountry skiing trip reports posted from April 2001 through August 2002. The new version Trip Reports is where new trip reports are currently being posted; it also has copies of the ~340 older trip reports and is searchable. |
| March 2002 Trip Reports |
March 31, 2002 Mt Catherine - Snoqualmie Pass Backcountry (I-90): "Did Catherine Summit via NW shoulder. Tracked snow was refrozen from what looked like a descent prior day before of corn snow and pinwheels. What was left for us in the trees was lots of breakable crust. Better skiing in the clearcut on the north slopes. Should be a pretty good tour in warmer temps or with a fresh dump. Is that wishful thinking?...." Ron Jarvis Week ending March 31, 2002 Ruby Creek, B.C.: "N to Nelson, New Denver, Hills, then 12 mi by snocat to Ruby Cr. Lodge, Valhalla Mt. Tours. Nice lodge. Start with ice and breakable crust. Then snow, snow, snow; lots of powder. Lots of climbing. Lots of skiing w good food and good company. Mostly trees and glades. Then a 11-mile ski out + 11 hr drive home Sunday night to got to work on April fool's day!" Andy Carey March 23-30, 2002 Battle Abbey, Southern Selkirks, B.C.: " Battle Abbey is a commercial ski touring lodge run by CMH (Canadian Mountain Holidays). It is accessed from the Bobbie Burns helipad which is near Golden. See Chic Scott's book 'Summits and Icefields' for photographs and particulars. Good hut set-up with running hot/cold water, lights, indoor flush toilets. Excellent cooking and guiding. Fair to good skiing (32K verts). Breakable crust at the start of the week, then new snow, but accompanied by high winds. Considerable avalanche hazard. Apart from our triggering of a small cornice and several warning whumps, no avalanche activity near us, but we observed several large slides across a drainage. " Brent H March 30, 2002 Touchet Corral, Blue Mtns.: "1 skier, 3 dogs left Touchet Corral near bluewood ski area at 9am. 1" corn silk on a nicely consolidated surface in the shade on skyline rd. Dogs did not punch through. Headed towards Table Rock and lost the last of the single snogo track. The rd. traverses an east facing slope that gets severely wind-loaded, obliterating the road. Dogs were punching in up to their bellies here. Turned back 1 mi. shy of Table after losing nerve on the 2nd 40 deg slope traverse w/o skins and dogs tied on. My pellestovas were no match, although the dogs performed flawlessly. Lots of plastic deformation but no catastrophic instability. Many broken cornices seen off Table Rock. I saw one 'biler high-marking, thankfully outside the wilderness bndry. Sheriff was ticketing sno-parkers w/o permits when we got back to TH. 1800 v.f., 15 mi. r.t., 3.7 hrs. including a 30 min. rest stop." David Lowry (david.lowry@pnl.gov) March 30, 2002 Arrowhead: "Arrowhead was a popular destination. Between 9 and 9:30AM, about 15 people began the trek up the road. Oddly, none were headed for Jim Hill, the formerly more popular choice of the two peaks. What causes the crowd's mood to shift? Conditions were wet and slushy below 4500', and a thin dry dusting above, which made for lots of snow balling up on skis for the track leaders. Skiing was variable, since the snow ranged from wet powder over a crust, to light corn covering the crust in more windblown areas." Silas March 29, 2002 Snoqualmie Pass: "I wanted to try out my new skis in some bad snow, just to give them a challenge, so I went, naturally, to Snoqualmie Pass. I went up in the afternoon and did three runs at closed Summit West, and found bad snow in the form of about 10" of heavy, wet snow above the previous groomed surface. Past the upper boundary of the ski area (~3800') in the open, a pole would go in about 2', through very wet snow and several crust layers, and I got some good pinwheels on small rolls; under the big trees the snow was somewhat frozen and faster. Swaths which had been recently groomed had very carvable, packed wet snow. The skis (Atomic tourcarve alpin) did great." Charles (tay@turns-all-year.com) March 24, 2002 Paradise, Mt Rainier NP: "Despite instrument (foggy) conditions at Paradise the forecast was for sun breaks. With hopes of improving weather we headed towards Cowlitz Rocks with alternate plans to go low if the vis didn't break. Waited above Sluiskin Falls in the soup for a while hoping it would clear but it didn’t so we worked our way down Mazama Ridge to Reflection Lakes, over the saddle and on down to Narada Falls. Snow was pretty much 2 or 3 inches of mashed potatoes on a crust that held up the lightweights most of the time and broke through with the heavyweights (that'd be me) when you just started to thinking you were "getting it" .. No avy conditions noted (but of course we could only see about 15 feet most of the time J ). Later in the week (Wednesday) one of our undercover spies reported wind scoured boilerplate on Mazama Ridge." Ron Jarvis March 24, 2002 Mt. St. Helens: "The Marble Mountain Snowpark has added a new lot for vehicles without trailers. It was nice not parking next to the snowmobilers. We had light rain at the trailhead which turned into scattered snow showers. We skinned up to 7,000' and were in a white out most of the time. Two in our group abandoned skis and went to tag the crator rim and the rest of us made some turns on some nice corn which existed between 5,500 to 7,000'. Below that the snow was unconsolidated, heavy and wet. No sign of recent avalanche activity. " Rob Kunz March 17, 2002 Jolly Mtn., Salmon La Sac backcountry: "Jolly was jolly. No one else, although a few tracks from Saturday. Also cougar and hare tracks. Sort of like the new Saturn SUV commercial if you pondered on it. 'Bilers kept to their turf; not even much distant racket. No avalanche activity, no access problems (Sno-park)." Brent H March 17, 2002 Mt. Catherine, Snoqualmie Pass: "We were blessed by the "Snow Gods" once again with lots of new snow and fantastic weather conditions!! Arrived at Hyak to 26 degrees, one to two feet of freshies, and conditions forecast for afternoon clearing. Took advantage of the two for one lift ride, skied off the backside and down the Nordic track to the cut off for our tour. Lucky for us that Robie and his gang had been there on Saturday and laid in a nice-up track to Nordic Pass where they continued on to Windy Pass, and towards Silver Basin. Fortunately for Ron and I, we were able to make our way up the south side ridge to the summit of Catherine in record time, where a great up-track had been laid in the day before by some unknown skiers (was it Phil and partner? Might have been. If so, Thanks, Phil!) . Good snow stability ; only kicked loose one small slough even though we cut a couple of rolls that were pushing 50 degrees. Got lots of fresh tracks, some good powder face shots, and great tree skiing. Check out the pics here. Temps remained constant throughout the day, with only slight melt/freeze in the sun exposed areas. Caught up again with the Nordic track road and skied/skinned back to Hyak (tried out the kicker skins, which worked very well on the flats)." Jeanette Morrison March 16, 2002 Nordic Pass, Snoqualmie Pass: "Hey Charles, are you missing some tracks? Well, we found them on Saturday! Didn't read your report for Friday till we got home Sat nite. But we did see your tracks on Sat. and skied the same slopes. I see why you call it your favorite. We had good cold powder, snow squalls and sunbreaks. No sign of instability, a little sloughing. The Old Growth terrain is unbelievably like Tumalo Mountain down across from Mt. Bachelor. We came in from the south side after the skiing Nordic Pass to Windy Pass slope twice. Ran into 2 skiers looking for Volken's route up Mt. Catherine. This is twice now that has happened. Same skiers were ahead of us and set uptrack and just our luck as we were skiing down to Windy Pass a group of Mountaineer XC skiers were setting an up track back up to Nordic Pass. Oh lucky day! Thanks to all unknown skiers." Robie March 16, 2002 Snoqualmie Pass: "Utah has once again been transported to the Cascades. The day was filled with face shots, and the weather alternated between snow squalls and sunshine. The snowpack consisted of a foot of fluff, on top of a foot of gradually denser snow, on top of the crust. We skied aspects from south to southeast, up to 35 degrees, between 5200 and 3500ft, and found no signs of instability. By the end of day, the sun put a light crust on the snow below 4000ft (it wasn't as cold as forecast). We logged almost 7000ft of vertical, about the most I've ever done in day. We just couldn't stop, it was SO good!" Phil March 15, 2002 Nordic Pass, Snoqualmie Pass: "We aimed to get into the Snoqualmie Pass forest with hopes of still more powder skiing, during this possibly final round of low snow levels. Bought the 2-ride ticket (still have 2-for-1 deals on the web), dropped our packs at the top of the Silver Fir, and had a nice run in the 6-8" new on top of the groomed. Rode the lift again, got our packs, and headed for the big trees. A clearcut slope near the beginning of the old-growth forest caught our attention, so we skied that and were disappointed by the damp, cohesive nature of the snow, especially toward the bottom. The day was becoming warmer than we expected, given the forecast, so our only hope was the protection from daytime warming the big trees give the snow. Once into the old-growth, we were very encouraged to find 10-18" overlying the most recent rain crust, dense near the crust but loose and powdery toward the top, so we set a good track to the top of our favorite powder run near Nordic Pass. The first run was great, as were the second, third, and fourth. The snow was very consistent, stayed in good condition throughout the day, and showed no signs of significant instability. There are some photos from this trip here." Charles (tay@turns-all-year.com) March 10, 2002 Mt. Catherine, Snoqualmie Pass Backcountry (I-90): "Avy conditions squelched a couple of more aggressive destinations so we opted for Silver Peak Basin. An extreme lack of commitment to destination fueled by a foot or more of light fluffy on a solid base in the trees and higher winds in the open (so THAT'S why the call it "Windy Pass"!!) found us yo-yoing a particularly fun 35-40 degree gladed slope, having totally forgotten the original destination. We were actually quite happy staying in the glades, due in part to the obvious signs that the foot or two of recent would obviously slough on the base in more open terrain. The weather wasn't much for picture taking but we did get a couple of passable ones to show conditions, which are posted here." Ron Jarvis March 10, 2002 Pole Ridge: "It was our first family vacation in a long while. Days were mostly spent with the kids, sledding-skiing-snowshoeing. So, woke up early after a huge dump, expecting a big slog. 7 am, Fish Lake snopark, tied on my three huskies, pulled the quick-release, and off we went to find- pure virgin corduroy all the way up to Pole Ridge! Those 'bilers sure get pampered! T-marked/skijored in the 2-3 ft.wide deep stuff on the edges. Outstanding. 9 miles, 1150 v.f., 6 mph." David Lowry (david.lowry@pnl.gov) March 10, 2002 Granite Mountain (I-90): "Two of us left the trailhead around 8am. Two skiers and four snowshoers were breaking trail in front of us. We could see the Summit from I-90 and conditions looked good. Three hours later above the treeline things rapidly deteriorated. The snowshoers called it a day. We continued to about 4300' on a mix of drifts and icy crust. We strapped on our boards and harvested a nice 1100' section of vertical in thigh-deep light powder. The snow was great quality and remarkable. We were careful to avoid the gullies on the descent. We ate lunch out of the wind back in the trees. Above treeline we saw evidence of some small shears, and pinwheeling, but otherwise the avalanche danger appeared moderate." Freeride (Freeride@snowboardseattle.com) March 1-9, 2002 Selkirk Mountain Experience, Revelstoke, B.C.: "My curiosity led me to Experience the Rude-Man (Ruedi Beglinger), http://www.selkirkexperience.com/. I was a first-time-there B-teamer; skied everyday (27K verts). High grade terrain, excellent snow, exciting tree skiing, mixed visibility, record cold temperatures for March in B.C. during last three days. 'Sehr kalt'. Compulsive pacing which is not for everyone. Very good food, sauna, chalet (low head hydro, running water). One broken leg on the B-team, fortunately no frostbite. Saw Rob and Sonya West coming in as I was going out." Brent H March 9, 2002 Mt. Baker Backcountry: "Four of us spent the day wandering the backcountry near Artist Point, skiing south, east and north aspects in what began as a calm, sunny day and from that point devolved steadily into high wind, light snow and occasional ground blizzard. Although the recent snow was light and unconsolidated at the parking lot (ski pole passing through the top foot or so without effort, leaving only a hint of its track), there was heavy powder and soft slab almost everywhere we went, seemingly growing more cohesive throughout the day. Skiing was therefore great fun in the fall line, but somewhat irksome and effortful for those who like to finish their turns. I was made a bit distracted-not to say livid with rage-by the fact that whenever I found myself bounding gleefully down the fall line, powder flowing up and around me with every turn, I would mysteriously lose a ski. The first time interrupted an almost mystically good run with a slow-motion crash. The second time involved both cable binding and ski leash releasing, and the indignity of searching through thigh-deep snow for my buried ski while the others waited patiently below. I do not know quite what to make of this unprecedented string of binding failures, except that my new G3 plastic leashes are obviously not up to their appointed task and will soon be on their way back to British Columbia, from whence they came. My bindings, Rottefella Cobras, are now adjusted very tightly, and perhaps this will help. My TRP's, which are designed for such things, have declined to become involved. Snow stability was the main focus of the day, of course, with the deep, thick snow demanding steep terrain and lots of forward speed, while the obvious presence of both soft slab and sliding layers urged restraint. The predicted (by me, among others) surface sluffing failed to materialize. Instead, soft slabs were releasing rather easily on all aspects, on an apparent windcrust 14-20 inches down, and on the melt-freeze or raincrust 6 inches below that. On our first run, an exploratory ski down the edge of a gully released a slab 15 feet from my ski cut on a west-northwest aspect, suggesting a retreat to friendlier terrain. We next backed off another descent on an east aspect where small slabs released here and there on steep rolls at ski cuts (these were sometimes deliberate and sometimes not), booting up in order to traverse awkwardly to more agreeable terrain. Then we then watched from below while a pair of skiers obviously following our tracks performed the same indelicate maneuver. By this time, two of our party proclaimed themselves ready for afternoon siesta, so I and one other continued up to the ridge for one last run. The weather was deteriorating rapidly by this time, and our earlier tracks were largely filled with blown snow; trailbreaking was somewhat more arduous this second time around. While flailing our way back uphill we watched with some fascination while two more skiers followed our earlier tracks off the ridge, clearly over their heads in terms of skiing skill and understanding of the hazards involved. I watched with a critical eye while obvious cracks radiated from the tracks of each in turn, the existence of which they were apparently unaware. The reader with finely-honed sense of narrative flow will have noted that certain classic elements are by this time present: unstable snowpack; deteriorating conditions; a certain end-of-the-day weariness; the determination to squeeze a last couple of turns out of a somewhat frustrating day; and, not least, persons undeniably male in gender, possessed of an abundance of knowledge, skills, gear and hubris but a paucity of common sense. The short version of the story is that I made an unambiguously, if somewhat perplexingly, stupid terrain choice-and paid for it with a partial, mercifully brief burial. The long version, with my own complete and somewhat obsessive debrief, I will be posting elsewhere for those interested in such things. Today: another foot of snow, high winds, warming temps and avalanche alerts. Altogether a good day to sit around in my bathrobe next to the radiator, eating excessively fatty foodstuffs and drinking unduly caffeinated beverages. Enjoy." Mark March 9, 2002 Mazama, Mt. Rainier: "The weather report didn't look promising (hi winds etc.) and the recording said the road would open at 11, but we went anyway to find the road already open at 10 and the weather quite nice. A new foot of snow that fell at 11 degrees in high winds produced a variable and tricky cover over ice and death cookies. Met up with Gary and did the gully run to Reflection Lakes. Nice day." Andy Carey March 8-9, 2002 Herman Saddle: "What a difference a day makes. Friday afternoon start presented our party of 3 with 1.5' of very light powder very occasional W wind, temps in the teens and low to no visibility. Skinned to just below the saddle and took some short steeper lines to get the momentum necessary to plow through the deep snow. Excellent quality (bottomless in places, snorkel advisory). Did another 1/2 lap and called it a good afternoon of skiing. Old S aspect avy debris noted probably from the intense sun of the week previous. No recent activity, shovel shear showed ~16" of gradually denser powder well bonded to the thick sun crust below. Saturday was a whole different story with strong E winds, sunshine and heat early followed by clouds moving in. Our party of 5 made the saddle with another group of 11 or so. A very small natural released slab on SW aspect. Avoided W lee slope and headed back down toward the lift area. Windblown powder (~1') gave way to nice fluff higher up. Skied 2 small 50' bumps at ~4500' SE aspect with a very small skier triggered slab release of 10" crown, 10' wide, 20' long no accumulation, no propagation. Looking at probable further deteriorating conditions we bugged out where a few of us salvaged a couple of hours at the lift area." T. Moate March 3, 2002 Cowlitz Rocks, Mt. Rainier N.P.: "Sparkling spring day leisure start and skinning by 1000, snow still firm and lots of tracks on Mazama ridge from folks having fun on Sat. T-shirts and sun screen on the lower Paradise no wind and the snow softening up sweetly made for a easy ascent up to the saddle. A few sluffs on south facing slopes hard crust under the one the three inches of soft. By all appearences a firm crust from the rain last week even up to 7,000. Upper Paradise Glacier quite skiable with snow a bit more crusty on southeast facing aspects above 7,000. Snow setting up a bit heavy on the way out down low all in all A painfully pretty day to be out. " CW March 3, 2002 Coleman Pinnacle (Mt. Baker Backcountry): "After last weekend's pig wallow north of the border it seemed just as well to stay closer to home this weekend, so six of us wandered out Ptarmigan Ridge past Coleman Pinnacle and had our way with the north-facing terrain there. This particular company consisted of four of us old farts and one old fartette, together with one robust and strapping young man (who smoked us all on the downhills but tended to lag towards the back of the pack on the long climbs, often competing with me for my accustomed position at the far rear). Skies were startlingly blue, visibility limitless in all directions, the air generally soft and friendly and the views sublime. It has now been over a week since our last notable precipitation, a major rain-on-snow event which we prefer to think of in terms of its very beneficial densifying effect on the snowpack (which now consists of over 200 inches of approximately 90% water content, hard-frozen ice). At 4000 feet, remnant powder sprinkled liberally with death cookies covers a raincrust capable of supporting-should the need ever arise-Sherman tanks or armored personnel carriers. At 6000 feet, however, there is buttery, thick powder almost knee deep, quite stable and of a perfectly even consistency. At that elevation on north aspects the skiing was very, very good. Of course, on all other aspects the snow ranges from breakable crust through windslab to dirty water ice. Terrain selection is key. On our return trip along Ptarmigan Ridge, determined to head home in a blaze of glory, we decided to ski up and over Table Mountain. I do not at this time recollect whose idea this was, nor what sort of undeniably persuasive arguments were advanced in support of the concept. Apparently, the clincher for at least one of our members was a promise, convincingly presented, that there would be no breakable crust encountered on the downhill run. Fortunately, there was no breakable crust: there was, however, approximately 800 feet of heinous avalanche debris, piled deep, frozen hard and covered with a couple of inches of obscuring snow in the flat, late-afternoon light. It was ungodly brutal: linked turns were replaced by single stepped-teles, followed by kick turns and traverses, followed by gingerly sidestepping....followed, at least in my case, by near-total paralysis. It probably advisable to stay away from such slopes until covered by a minimum of three feet of fresh snow. I myself will hold out for four. The powder up high seemed, as mentioned, stable and well-bonded. Lower down, where rain or melt-freeze crusts had formed within the pack, there were pockets of slab which released easily on ski cuts. There was a lot of slide activity during the rain event a week ago, with extensive avalanches on mainly north slopes to size 3, but for current activity I noted only some wet, loose point releases from sun-warmed rocks. Given the widespread crust on all but north aspects, there will be reason to be cautious once it starts snowing again tomorrow night. Enjoy." Mark March 2, 2002 Lower Nisqually Glacier, Mt. Rainier N.P.: "Dorothea and I got to Gary Vogt's trailer outside the park at 8am . Gary skis just about every day up there. The tour de jour for the day was the Nisqually glacier (Hooray! ). Gary felt like like there was still some soft snow hiding in trees because of the cold week, but Nisqually would be more educational for me! We dropped in at Glacier veiwpoint (Gary 's easy and conservative tour ) at 10 :30 am. Directly skied down on hard snow to the moraine and headed up and back north to the northern tip of moraine. Crossed over to the west side via "Wilson crossing". Along the West side is a ramp that goes all the way down to the Glacier snout .Gary's choice and it turned out to be a good one as the outlet has moved to the East very close to the big hunkin rock. East route is still possible but leaves one with a big iffy traverse around either side of of outlet. West route is filled in nicely and at no time did we feel like crevasses were a problem. Rock fall was another matter with warming sun. Still its very doable, just take care to keep out of range of spitting rocks. Snow quality - 1st third Good- middle third was steeper and hence more receptive to sun and was bad due to failure of the buried crust -Last section from the snout (4900' ) down is lower in both angle and elevation and had developed into good corn. None of it fazed Dorothea the Austrian lightwieght (98lbs.). She hardly made a dent in the snow and had a fantastic day. Gary and I kept breaking through in middle section (Read CRASH!). I was xtra heavy, cause to be safe I was carrying rope and enough rescue gear to save Shackelton's entire crew! We took a lot of pictures and skied it out all the way to the bridge at 1pm. The whole Paradise area was crowded but we had the Glacier to ourselves. Gary needed to get some things done, so Dorothea and I put our skins back on and headed back up the glacier for another easy 1000' in the sun. Checked out the outfall closely and then skied down taking advantage of good corn, gelandesprungs and pleasant day. Note: this is an Official Volcano Evacuation route." There are photos from this trip here. Robie Back to top |