Ruth Mountain

January 12, 2019

With a promising weekend forecast and a substantially-lower avalanche forecast than much of the winter so far, Kelsey and I hatched a plan to ski Ruth Mountain on Saturday as a day trip from Seattle. We knew the ski conditions wouldn’t be great, but the views would make up for it. We left town early and were able to drive most of the forest road, parking a little over a mile from the trailhead where the snow got too deep and a tree blocked the road. Another car of 3 guys had just parked before we rolled up and we ended up spending most of our day together.

We left the car at 8:30am. About 25 minutes of skinning got us to the trailhead and then we followed the summer trail since coverage wasn’t great in the valley. Lots of old avalanche debris in the gulleys and frozen snow made the long side-hill approach a bit painstaking. It took about 2.5 hours to get to the clearing below Hannegan Pass. As we climbed, the snow finally turned from a hard icy crust to lighter, fluffier happiness.

We took the shorter approach on the South side of point 5930 and started getting awesome views of Baker and Shuksan as well as The Pickets as we gained Ruth’s North Ridge. The snow became harder and the winds increased as we neared the top. We took in the views from the summit about 5.5 hours after starting our day. Being about 2pm, we didn’t linger long up top and quickly clicked into the skis to head down the north face.

With some wind loading, we took a conservative line toward the East and finished up down the face on some fun spines to stay out of the wind loaded gulleys. We traversed the terrain lower down and slid our way across the still frozen snow in the valley, eventually putting the skins back on to get up to the summer trail and keeping them on for the rolling, frozen terrain from there on out. We got to the car right about 9 hours after starting, just before a headlamp was necessary.

Fun day. A bit more horizontal and rolling travel than I was expecting. The views were stellar and the skiing up high was better than expected.

Table Mountain Circumnavigation

April 22, 2018

Kelsey and I originally planned to ski Ruth Mountain this weekend to soak in views without worrying too much about avalanche potential after recent spring storms and warming temperatures. We drove up to the Hannegan Pass Road on Saturday night, planning to drive up to the trailhead, but quickly encountering more snow on the road than we could drive through. We called it a night there and gave it a brief shot early in the morning, but quickly discovered that the road was melted out further up, which would have meant walking over 6 extra miles each way, so we bailed and drove up to the Baker ski area instead, took a nap, and then headed off for a tour around Table Mountain.

We left the car just shy of 9am under clear skies with awesome views around the range. We made it to Artist Point in about 35 minutes, ripped skins and did a long traverse below Table's South face, and climbed up to the base of Ptarmigan Ridge in about 70 minutes from the car. The ski down to Mazama Lake was pretty fun, though short lived. We skinned back up here and cruised across Iceberg Lake and up the steeper section to the saddle between Table and Mazama Dome about 1 hour and 50 minutes in.

The first 500 feet or so was pretty fun skiing on easy terrain before finishing the ski on increasingly heavy, wet snow and traversing, then skinning out to the car, finishing in 2.5 hours. Beautiful day and great views with better-than-expected snow. I just wish we'd gotten on top of something a bit more ambitious!

Scraping my way down at the edge of the basin

The Brothers East Basin

April 1, 2018

From my apartment in Seattle, The Brothers are a prominent landmark on the Westerly horizon. During clear days in the winter and spring, the snowy East Basin looks like an alpine playground, so I just had to check it out.

Kelsey and I drove over on Saturday night after dinner, arriving at the Lena Lake Trailhead at about 10pm with enough time to enjoy a beer before going to sleep in the back of the car. We woke up at 4am and were on the trail with skis on our backs by 4:45am. It was an hour on the dot to the sign at the South end of Lena Lake. We made a bit of a wrong turn here in the dark, thinking we needed to stay right along the lake and realized our error after hitting a pretty bushwhacky section right next to the lake. We doubled back and regained the normal trail, only losing 15 minutes or so, which took us exactly where we wanted to go—past the Lena Lake campground and to the Northwest corner of the lake, where we crossed the river and headed up the Valley of Silent Men.

We started encountering ice and snow on the trail, but it wasn't consistent enough to start skinning, so we plodded along, sometimes in foot-deep snow, until we were in the lower-angle area at about 3,100 ft and 3 hours in or so. It started snowing very lightly at this point, but was calm. We skinned up, past a campsite, and to the head of the valley where the route finding began about 4.5 hours in at 3,600 ft. While it looked tricky, with a series of cliffs and tighter trees, it wasn't actually that bad. The snow was an unfortunate breakable crust, which was pretty slick, but could be packed just slightly, so we took turns bashing our way up. A couple of sections were too steep and tight to skin, so we booted those brief bits, breaking fully through the crust and post holing up to our knees. A few curses were uttered for sure.

Halfway through this section, the weather started to get worse—visibility reduced and the snow started falling harder. While it wasn't pleasant, it also didn't feel unsafe, so we kept going, hoping that things would clear up for us. We eventually made it to the top of the steep section and entered the basin at about 5,000 ft 6 hours in. It was a total milk bottle up there, at times so bad that we felt vertigo not being sure if we were about to be going up or down the slopes. Still holding out hope, we kept going up and got to the high bench at 5,800 ft about 6.5 hours in. At this point, we were quite close to the top and couldn't see it at all, so we sat down and decided to have lunch while waiting it out. Going up the couloir in the whiteout didn't seem wise and would only be to tag the summit—not really the goal.

45 minutes later, the visibility hadn't improved, so we started skiing down. About 1,500 feet lower, as we were in the middle of the cliff band section, it cleared up significantly and the sun came out. Damn! We decided it was hard to know if the summit was actually clear and it wasn't worth heading back up, so we kept going down, reversing our tracks, switching back to shoes at the same point where we'd left them (and the whiskey), and hiking our way back out to the car, reaching it about 11.75 hours after we'd started.

While it was a bummer to not get on top, I'd rather do it when the views are clear and I can look back at my apartment as a spec on the horizon. It was a good training mission regardless.

It was not lost on us that we'd been fooled on April 1st. We drowned our sorrows at the Hamma Hamma Oyster Saloon.