Enchantment zone
Knowing that the skiing in the area was less than ideal, we went into the Colchuck Lake basin to find ice to climb. We found not bad ice and mixture of unpleasant, awful, and downright wreckless skiing from Colchuck lake back to the car. Now I love skiing more than just about any other activity in life, but if I had to do it again I’d definitely leave the skis and ski boots at the trailhead and just wear my mountaineering boots up to the lake.
Some northerly aspects were supportable crust and anything, and I mean anything, that got sun had a stout but breakable crust. Large slide paths noted on all aspects. Colchuck glacier and aasgard both house huge avalanche debris piles - probably from 1/12 rain event.
Colchuck
Where did you park, and what was your approach?
The long slog up the road. I am but a simple peasant without a snowmobile.
Had considered the traverse given avalanche conditions, but we opted not to due to high probability of terrible ski conditions. Definitely made the right call. Both aasgard and Colchuck had massive slides that ran almost the entirety of the slopes.
Great to see you getting after it. Nice to have the young,fast guys, check out places like that. Ive never been to Colchuck in the winter, and have seldom heard good reports about the trudge. I would like to do it sometime, with a fat base and new snow. SP was good today!
omg that is a long pull; it's long enough from the parking lot to the lake in the summer, let alone adding however many miles of road you had to add into the mix. And having miserable skiing conditions I guess is the cherry on the cake.
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