Feb, 08-09, 2010, Buckner Approach

The morning was to begin with a 3:30 rise time to get on the move for a Buckner ski tour/ascent/loop with Sahale. Myself and Will lay on the mattress in his truck, hearing the rain fall at 3:00, and postponed rising an hour. We did not look forward to beginning our trek soaked. We got going by 5:10 after I had sucked down a Starbucks coffee- apparantly vanilla flavored - disgusting excuse for a drink. Walking in our tennis shoes past the road closure up to cascade pass parking lot, we made reasonable time to the mining road and summer route to Boston Basin.

The trail
In our boots we bashed bush and post-holed up the Midas creek drainage, and found an open clearing to start skinning. Yes! we though, don't have to carry our skis anymore. But, No! Will's skins were refusing to stick to his skis.  I skinned and Will post-holed for ~1.5k ft to the beginning of the Boston Basin. The predicted weather had come true, with mostly to partly cloudy skies. It was gorgeous. With some 5k before us to get to the Boston-Sahale (B-S) col, we had our day ahead of us. After a bit more boot-packing, Will laid his skins out to dry, and got them working again. We skinned the Basin and up the Quien Sabe Glacier, the snow was between 5-8inches of wind-blower and wind-groomed. Very consolidated everywhere.

Jon's favorite mountain: J-berg

Sahale

We ascended the last 1.5k to the B-S col, and then began the 'unlikely traverse' towards Boston would somehow 'magically' get us to a col with easy access to the Boston glacier. We ascended, we pitched it out because of the snow-covered chossiness replete unknown cornices and found ourselves with another 2 cols and knobs to traverse before any potential glacier access. We had 1 hr of light left. Given our situation, we decided that it would be best to turn around, with a goal of making it as close to the truck (or the truck itself, because it had a mattress!) We downclimbed, protected to the B-S col, threw on our skis and enjoyed the most enjoyable night skiing I could ever imagine. This was in part due to Will's headlamp which was seemingtly as powerful as some of the night-skiing lights at Stevens. And because the snow quality that made it exceptionally enjoyable to pop up and down around our turns.

Sahale

The approach from B-S col to Boson

Buckner, taunting us

Sunset from up high

Because we didn't want to bushwhack our way down the way we came up, we decided that we would traverse around a rib that would get us to the Soldier boy creek. Towards the last 300ft of this traverse, it became nearly solid ice. After getting 1/2 the way there, my skis were unable to hold and I slid. I self-arrested with my whippet, to only stop the acceleration of my movement and not my velocity. A ski popped off and I jammed my foot into the ice. I stopped. Phew. Will shouted, "good job in stopping". Right as he said that I adjusted my position slightly and lost my toe-hold. I slid another 5 feet. With one ski dangling from the leash around my foot, another ski still attached, but with a leash that I observed had broken I was in a predicament. But I figured it out, holding my weight with 1 arm and 1 foot in the slope, I got my other ski off and leash-tied to my pack. Unable to do any pack-adjustments, I used my ski-bindings and whippet to help me ascend-traverse the rest of rib which involved kicking 1-2inch footholds in the icy snow. Once on the rib, I was exhausted and dehydrated and we set up camp. We have both slept better, but it was truly nice to be not moving.

In the morning, the sun greeted us via the peaks it illuminated. We had great views of the Sahale arm and S face as we skied down Soldier boy-creek back to the road. We skiied back to the mining-road turnoff, picked up our shoes and skiied a few hundred feet lower where we threw our shoes back on. I was able to get a good shot of the general approach that we took up to the B-S col.

Eldorado

The backdrop of our approach, without our route drawn in yet

After arriving to Will's frost covered truck, throwing our stuff in the back, and hopping in to get going will turned the ignition key. "an-urhna, an-urna, an-urna" the car spoke. He turned the key again: "an-urhna, an-urna, an-urna". We looked at each other, took a minute or two before trying again.  to look again at the summer route-description of how to ge tto the Boston glacier (the way we were doing it was in fact correct, for summer). Will turned the key once more: "an-urhna, click-click-click-click-click". Fuck, the battery was dead. d-e-d dead. So we pushed the truck out of the parking lot up a 20? ft hill. No small feet given our tiredness. At the crest the truck started rolling down hill, with a bit of pushing here and there we got the car started as we slowly accelerated down Cascade river road. Yes! The adventures feast was at the Burger barn.

Notes: Snow very consolidated on the glacier and everywhere else. Aspect dependent pockets of 3-5inch soft slabs. The ridgeline snow from B-S col would have been happier to hold a fluke than a picket, as it was light and fluffy. Even the small amounts of rock gear that I brought, felt silly because none was exposed.

My new Diva Scarpas were great on day 1, but my toes fell asleep on day two. Yes, they are the female version but their lighter!

Other photos may be found at. http://picasaweb.google.com/sukiakiumo/100208BucknerAttempt?feat=directlink

Too bad we didn't see this before hand: http://skisickness.com/CascadePass/NFBuckner/pic.php?nm=BucknerRoute.jpg&w=800 instead of reading all of the other books with different approaches.