April 5, 2008, Red Mtn Traverse (Salmon La Sac)

With the iffy weather forecast, Jeff, Jack and I decided to head off to Salmon La Sac to do Red Mountain today. Turned out to be a good call as it gave us the chance to do some really fun touring and ski just about every type of snow you could think of in one day!

At the trailhead, we met Jim Oker and his group, not to see them the rest of the day (sounds like they had a good one too). We headed up Cooper River Road and just past the second creek crossing started our way upward. Trailbreaking through the forest was easy. After crossing forest service road around 3700 feet and skinning about 400 feet further up the slope, we realized the slope we had just come up was corning up perfectly in the early morning sun. So... we dropped the packs, took off the skins and grabbed a nice 400 foot run of corn back down to the road. Well worth the effort. From there it was back up to grab our packs and on toward the top. We picked up a great skin track laid down  by a pair up ahead of us and made good time up to the top of Point 5722. Although the ski down our ascent route looked like it might have been nice, from the top we looked north and spied  the east facing slopes coming down off what we thought was the true summit of Red Mountain. Given the corn we found down lower and the continuing sunshine, it looked as if those slopes would be nicely corned up as well. Too appealing to pass up so we decided to head over.

It looked like the ridge would go all the way but the traverse required a bit of route-finding. We had to boot down off Pt 5722 with skis on our back, then move over a second obstacle and then around the north side of another one before finally putting on the skis again. The initial ski alond the ridge was pretty straightforward but we eventually spied what looked like an obstacle that would require some more scrambling. We opted to drop down to the west off the ridge about 200 feet down or so and found a nice slope to traverse before heading back up some steep slopes to regain the ridge. A bunch of somewhat steep traversing in deep soft snow eventually put us out on the ridge just shy of the summit and we were easily able to ski up on top. We grabbed some lunch with views of the Stuart Range and Mt. Daniel and got ready to enjoy the ski down.

The first 15 turns heading northeast off the top were beautiful powder. By the time we hit the slopes we hoped would be corned up, the sky had clouded up pretty well and the winds were blowing a bit. No corn to be had anymore but lots and lots of crust with mush underneath to keep us occupied for the next several hundred feet down. Eventually, the crust relented and we were able to ski soft but very turnable snow down to the upper road. We traversed around on the road to the point which we initially crossed earlier in the day and from there, dropped down through the glades all the way down to Cooper River Road, finding what we thought had to have been the tracks from Jim Oker's group. That left the short slog on the road back to the car where we packed up while group of snowmobilers drove around in circles on their machines for 15 minutes while they waited for their friend. Apparently, they never heard of turning the machines off and saving a bit of gas.

Powder and corn turns all in one trip... not a bad way to spend a Saturday.