Sahale

Since the skiing was so good on Mt Baker and the next weekend was forecasted with good weather, when Lowell emailed to do Sahale I jumped again.  Glad I did, another great day in the mountains.

 Ross, Jens and Lowell starting towards Cascade Pass

 Cascade Pass

 Sahale has some of the easiest accessed scenery in the Cascades

Lowell on the summit

Little bit of rock at the top, ripsaw ridge in background(photo Lowell Skoog)

 Jens me, Lowell (photo Lowell Skoog)

 Ross with Johannesburg in background

Me and Steve Stroming (photo Lowell Skooog)

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!

Lowell and company heading out

Sunrise over the Coleman Glacier

Amazing!

Lowell below Colfax 

L-R Dwayne, Lowell, Crispin, me and Ross

Crispin dropping onto the Park Glacier below the Cockscomb

Lowell styling the Park Glacier

All tracked out

Crispin

Clouds building

Dwayne with the Portals in the background

Slot & Circus Couloir

Ed called and was motivated to get out in the mountains and do some real skiing (i.e. not lift assisted).  We initially planned on skiing Red and Lundin, but, in typical Brandon and Ed style indecisively changed our plan to ski north facing instead of west and south facing.  Good choice it turns out, since the sun came out and baked things, but in the sheltered north recesses Mt Snoqualmie we found good powder.  A little slabby and reactive (were able to kick off a couple small slabs that ran a ways, but beautiful day to be in the mountains.

Ed at the top of the Slot, Chair, Kaleetan in background

The Slot entrance

Ed dropping in

An amazing line

Down in the bottom

Ed skinning up the Circus Couloir

Booting the final 100'

Nice Views at the top, L to R: Bryant, Chair, Kaleetan, Roosevelt

Ed dropping in

Shallow slab that cleaned things out

Ed styling the apron

Ed booting out to the Phantom, heading home

Mt. Baker

Okay, so I'm not convinced that I'm into mountaineering. I've never been all that interested in summiting big peaks, but finally, Brandon convinced me to give it a go on Mt. Baker.

The short write-up is that I didn't love it. In fact, I'm not sure I even remotely liked it.

First, we had to walk a mile carrying our skis on our shoulders b/c the road wasn't yet cleared up to the trailhead. I can't even walk through a ski resort parking lot with my skis on my shoulder without it being a seriously uncoordinated and near-injury effort.

Then, we skinned -sort of- in the forest. Mostly, we had to pick up our skis b/c there were a lot of exposed trees, logs, etc. And the 'snow' was more dirt than snow. Anyway, the rhythm of skinning never really got started.

Next, we had to up a gully. I HATE gullies! I slipped and slid, got nervous, and cursed.

So then, we took our skis off and boot-packed. It looked like we would just need to boot-pack a little ways, just to that top that you can see...and then as soon as you get to that top, you have to go further...and so on for quite some time.

These big black thunderhead rain clouds were chasing our tails the whole way. We finally arrived at a good camp site on the glacier. The wind howled while we set up the tent. It howled so hard as to make relaxing impossible.

Then we went to bed with the intent of getting up at 4am to summit. Hmmm...I HATE 4am, but anyway. At 4am, it was a complete downpour and the summit was shrouded in clouds. 5am, same story. 6am, 7am, same story. 8am, we packed up, had breakfast, and went down, leaving me wondering what was the point of all of this misery?!?

The first sign of trouble...carrying my skis right out of the truck!

Mt. Baker

Boot-packing...

Still boot-packing.

The summit is to our right, completely covered in clouds.

Mt. Rainier

Brandon skied up & down Mt. Rainier with a friend, Adam. They navigated around deep crevasses and collapsed snow bridges. They had great weather. As I write this post, he is back at Rainier, going up with a group of guys from work.