Ruby Mountain 2021

After a winter of unsettled avalanche conditions, the prospect of a blue bird day with low danger on a North-facing slope was incredibly exciting. The motivation carried us through the 4:30am wakeup in Seattle and 5am city departure to drive Highway 20 to its winter gate at the Ross Dam Trailhead.

Leaving the cars just after 8am, we skinned the road for about 0.7 miles before putting the skis on our backs, cutting through the woods, and catching the trail where it climbed up steeply near Happy Creek. There was a good boot pack through the woods and we ended up walking just shy of 2 miles from the car before switching back to skinning.

We started catching views to the North as we climbed higher and the trees thinned out. It was a beautiful day with a bunch of other parties on their way up. It was smooth sailing all the way to the top, where we arrived just shy of 5 hours after leaving the car. Views of the North Cascades were stellar and we thoroughly enjoyed our lunch while taking them in.

The ski down was really fun with a few inches of light, newer snow on top of a supportive base with no signs of instability. We cut under the North face and headed down the fun terrain there into an open gully, then. back to our skin track. The ski out was uneventful, with really efficient and fun side-slipping through trees at the end on buttery corn snow. We made it to the road 8 hours after leaving the car and pushed ourselves without skins the last bit to the cars in another 15 minutes. It felt luxurious to finish with plenty of daylight—great way to kick off the “spring” season.

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Table Mountain Circumnavigation and Herman Saddle

Owen and I drove separately from Seattle and enjoyed a wonderful socially-distant, but still highly social, ski tour on Christmas Eve. Nearly every bridge on I-5 North had a spinout crash on it in the early morning and the drive took a bit longer than normal, but was worth it as we crested the last few rises to the Mount Baker Ski Area and views of Shuksan looking regal in its winter coat.

We cruised up on the edge of the groomer to Artist Point in about 35 minutes. A quick traversing ski brought us to the flats below the South Face of Table Mountain. The wind which had been blowing up at Artist Point was nearly gone and we enjoyed the beach-like atmosphere and Shuksan views.

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About 1 hour and 15 minutes in, we were on the Southern shoulder of Table Mountain, checking out a cool igloo some folks had made there with an expansive view of Baker. A pretty icy and wind-crusty traversing ski brought us down to Mazama Lake. We quickly transitioned and crossed Iceberg Lake. The climb from the lake was pretty icy and required care skinning up without ski crampons.

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We weren’t ready for our day to be over at this point, so we decided to head up to Herman Saddle to see what it looked like on the North side. After a short ski down, we skinned up and were able to skin the whole way on sun-softened snow. Unfortunately, the North-facing slope down to the lake looked icy and windblown, so we called it good here and had lunch in the sun with a nice view of Baker.

Our turns down to Bagley Lake had their moments, but conditions certainly weren’t amazing. No bother—spending a day out of the house with a good friend I hadn’t seen in months and phenomenal views more than made up for it. Great day.

Hurricane Ridge Ride

Looking to escape the smoke, I found some green air quality indicators over the Olympic Peninsula on Thursday and decided to make a one-day trip to Port Angeles for the big climb up Hurricane Ridge. Leaving the town, the climb starts almost immediately and only relents a couple of times. Knowing it would be around 17 miles of straight climbing, I tried to settle into a rhythm and pace I could maintain.

As the road climbed higher, the views started to open up on my left and they were thankfully pretty clear up high, with smoke clearly filling the valleys below. I could eventually see the Mount Olympus massif in the hazy distance. With few cars on the road and little smoke, it was a pretty nice day for the ride despite the heat and I saw a couple of other cyclists on their way down. I started to fade a bit at the end but was pretty happy with the effort overall.

I arrived at the main parking lot just shy of two hours after I’d left Port Angeles and decided to continue on to the end of the road. I must have done a pretty good job emptying the tank because the short climbs on that last little bit were really tough and I felt myself bonking hard. I stopped at the end of the road for a massive dose of sugar before turning around, soaking in the views at the visitor center, and then barely touching the brakes on the way down. Great climb!