summit snapshots...: Watson Traverse

A few weekends ago I had the opportunity to complete the Watson Traverse on skis in the North Cascades. When I first received the email invitation from Lowell Skoog I was hesitant, I had just put away my ski gear for the next season, and the warm weather already had me in Summer mode, thinking of riding bikes etc. When Lowell told me it was the 75th Anniversary of the first traverse and that he wanted to shoot some film to recreate the film that Dwight Watson had taken on the original trip, I knew I couldn't pass this up.

For those that don't know, Lowell Skoog has quietly established himself in the history of the Cascades as a ski mountaineering pioneer, especially in the North Cascades. Any trip with Lowell is an opportunity not only for good company but also a lesson in efficient mountain travel, ski technique and history.

On the history side of this story, the brief version is that the Watson Traverse was originally done in 1939, completed by Dwight Watson, Andy Hennig, and Erick Larson in a single day. At the time, they called it the Mt. Baker traverse because the traverse was from Mt. Baker to Artist Point near the Mt. Baker ski area. Lowell, being the historian that he is, decided that it was only fitting to name the traverse after Dwight Watson who is credited with planning the first traverse. Dwight Watson was an amazing individual, establishing many of the first ski descents around the Cascades. An interesting tidbit of info on Dwight is that he was the first person to take Fred Becky climbing. The story goes that Fred's dad knew Dwight was a responsible, religious man and thought that he could teach Fred and keep him from killing himself in the mountains! For more interesting reading check out Lowell's site here: LINK, and the video link to Dwight's film: LINK (the film is halfway down the page on right side).

Fast forward 75 years, and another group of skiers -myself, Lowell, Ross, Crispin, and Dwayne- started out to complete the Watson Traverse, leaving from the Heliotrope Ridge trailhead at 4:30 AM. We started hiking on dirt in comfortable temps under clear skies, perfect weather. The day was long and somewhat uneventful; we enjoyed excellent skinning conditions, only donning ski crampons for a couple areas. Ropes were not needed as the glacier was still filled in. We periodically stopped at key points so Lowell could shoot some film to recreate scenes from Dwight's film, so the pace was nice and comfortable. On the summit we found warm temps and no wind whatsoever, really nice! There were multiple descents, on which we found surprisingly good 'corn' conditions despite the warm temps.

Oddly enough, there was another party (large group of 12 people) on the same route this day. The fact that we were on the same route is where our similarities ended. These were a bunch of "bro-bras" with baggy pants, trucker hats, huge rocker skis, and music playing loud from their packs as they skied along, very interesting. They also had a somewhat careless approach to how they skied the Park Headwall. We chose a conservative descent, skiing down to the Cockscomb, then traversing onto the headwall at a lower and less exposed area. The bro-bras just dropped onto the big open face above a gaping bergschrund, taking huge fast turns down the face and then jumping the schrund at the bottom! Guess some people's idea of risk assessment is a bit different.

Despite the shenanigans of the big group we were able to enjoy the route first, and to ourselves as we moved a bit faster. Which was good as listening to their bro-bra talk and loud music took away from the mountain experience a bit. We arrived at the Mt. Baker ski area around 5 pm, and headed down the mountain to retrieve our cars and enjoy a delicious dinner at Milanos in Glacier. I was back home and in bed by midnight, almost 24 hrs later!