With the forecast lining up for a single day objective, Kelsey and I decided to head out to the Leavenworth area and add a new peak to our repertoire. We drove her van to the road intersection off Icicle Creek between Johnny Creek and Ida Creek around 10:30pm on Saturday night. There was enough cloud cover that it was quite dark and we couldn’t see much, but it was clear there was no snow to be found in the valley. Significant doubt set in as we conked out for the night.
We woke up at 5:45am and it was already light enough to see that there was no snow for a long ways up the mountain. The recent heat wave had significantly impacted the snowpack. We set our expectations low and donned our trail runners, planning to walk for a good ways starting at 6:30am. Thankfully, near the switchback of the forest road, a nicely-signed trail to Lake Victoria began and we followed it all the way up to near the ridge line at 3,600 feet. There were a few patches of snow to this point, but it was generally dry.
At the ridge, we couldn’t see much snow in the Victoria Creek drainage. There was a couple hundred foot section of dense slide alder that we waded through to get toward the creek, then a moderately tricky stream crossing before we got to the other side and decided to switch to skis about 2 hours from the car. We weren’t sure the snow would be continuous from here and our expectations remained low. On the more North-facing aspect, the snow was in better shape and we were able to skin up to 4,500 feet where a nice-looking gully presented itself.
We thought the summer trail followed Victoria Creek more closely, but decided this gully was more likely to have continuous snow. We skinned nearly all of it and booted the last part with icy snow. From there, we could skin again up and over a shoulder down toward Victoria Creek, eventually getting to Lake Victoria about 4 hours from the car. What a stunning spot! A bit like Colchuck Lake, but with an unfamiliar cirque of granite and no signs of civilization. Our straight-on view of the Victoria’s Secret Couloir made it look quite steep and the wet slide debris from the recent heat wave made it look like skiing it would be quite challenging.
Nevertheless, we headed across the lake to see what it looked like up close. We found the slopes to be lower angle than expected and a clear area on the climber’s right of the gully to be easy skinning. In the hot sun, we switchbacked our way up, eventually transitioning to boots and crampons to climb the gully. It got pretty steep and icy near the top, but was never too much for a single whippet.
Above the couloir, the snow was firm enough that we just stayed in boots and crampons up to a nice rest spot below the NW Face about 6 hours from the car. We had less than 1,000 feet to go at this point and could see an old boot track headed up the face. We left skis at the base of the face and headed up, traversing in from the climber’s right and then going pretty directly up to the summit block. We made it to the top in 7 hours from the car, so 1:30pm. The views of the Enchantments and Stuart Range were phenomenal. Having climbed many of the peaks and lines visible, it was really cool to see them lined up like that.
A quick downclimb closer to the North ridge brought us back to our skis. We clicked in and scraped our way down the first 500 feet or so before things warmed up and were much more fun. The couloir had seemed quite intimidating on the way up, but it wasn’t too bad to side-slip the top and then, as soon as we were through the constriction, we had the best skiing of the day on the corn below.
After a quick skate across the lake, we tried to match our up track, heading over the shoulder into our ascent drainage and then down more directly to the stream crossing. It all went smoothly and included some pretty fun turns, only getting wet and heavy down near the creek. We transitioned here 9 hours from the car and made quick work of the descent, reaching the car about 1 hour and 20 minutes later for a bit over 10 hours on the day.
Hitting this a bit earlier in the season would be recommended, but the effort to get to the snow was actually not as bad as we had expected it to be. On days when you don’t have high expectations, accomplishing anything feels pretty good. We were pretty psyched to have tagged this summit and skied this route. The subsequent burgers and beers in Leavenworth and drive home during the daylight hours added to a glorious feeling that summer is near.
