February 5, 2011, Bedal Basin, pk5882
2/5/11
1717
3
Mostly an exploratory tour. I've wanted to go up Bedal Cr for some time, and when nothing looks good why not at least go somewhere new??!
Parked about a mile away from the Bedal Cr trailhead at ~2500'. Probably, could've made the TH if I'd had chains or studs. The trail was really nice, pretty flat through big stands of forest. I had numerous potential objectives, none of which really panned out.
Partial snow became more consistent around 3200'. I followed the creek until 3400-3500' then turned and booted up the fairly steep hillside. It was slow going and I was not excited about the prospects of skiing down this slope.
I finally took the skis off the pack at 4600' to switch to skins w/ ski-pons. Mostly overcast all morning, but I burst through the trees as the sun came out for an hour of blue sky!
Looking up to 5882, decided to go for it.
The local views came and went with the clouds, but the SW side of Bedal Cr has some beautiful lines that need more tracks :)
Foggy Peak (i think) popped over in the distance.
The sun went away and the rain looked to be setting in, plus I was just done. So I packed it in at 5800', just below the saddle west of pk5882. Skied the south facing gully path all the way to the flats at 4400'. Made it across the flats and somehow managed to find open glades with coverage(woohoo!) all the way to the creek. Skied the trail out to about 3150'.
Time to pack it in and head down.
PS. I don't really want to ruin this TR by talking about the snow, but above 5k 0-4" of new on a hard surface (ski supportable, not boot supportable). Some thin hard slabs were forming in leeward pockets, but most of my route was south facing with a thick melt-freeze crust at surface.
Parked about a mile away from the Bedal Cr trailhead at ~2500'. Probably, could've made the TH if I'd had chains or studs. The trail was really nice, pretty flat through big stands of forest. I had numerous potential objectives, none of which really panned out.
Partial snow became more consistent around 3200'. I followed the creek until 3400-3500' then turned and booted up the fairly steep hillside. It was slow going and I was not excited about the prospects of skiing down this slope.
I finally took the skis off the pack at 4600' to switch to skins w/ ski-pons. Mostly overcast all morning, but I burst through the trees as the sun came out for an hour of blue sky!
Looking up to 5882, decided to go for it.
The local views came and went with the clouds, but the SW side of Bedal Cr has some beautiful lines that need more tracks :)
Foggy Peak (i think) popped over in the distance.
The sun went away and the rain looked to be setting in, plus I was just done. So I packed it in at 5800', just below the saddle west of pk5882. Skied the south facing gully path all the way to the flats at 4400'. Made it across the flats and somehow managed to find open glades with coverage(woohoo!) all the way to the creek. Skied the trail out to about 3150'.
Time to pack it in and head down.
PS. I don't really want to ruin this TR by talking about the snow, but above 5k 0-4" of new on a hard surface (ski supportable, not boot supportable). Some thin hard slabs were forming in leeward pockets, but most of my route was south facing with a thick melt-freeze crust at surface.
Cool that you found this out of the way place and that driving conditions cooperated.
Bedal is a beautiful mountain especially in the alpine. This 2008 TR http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboarding/trip_reports/index.php?topic=10193.0 from Kevin Steffa shows a sneaky route to go over near Nels Lake and then up into alpine. The trail is no picnic with downed trees and a somewhat flagged fishing trail, but once you get up to the glades it's not bad, and then up in the alpine it's bliss. We were fortunate to get Kevin to show us the way in 2009 and had a great day out.
Bedal is a beautiful mountain especially in the alpine. This 2008 TR http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboarding/trip_reports/index.php?topic=10193.0 from Kevin Steffa shows a sneaky route to go over near Nels Lake and then up into alpine. The trail is no picnic with downed trees and a somewhat flagged fishing trail, but once you get up to the glades it's not bad, and then up in the alpine it's bliss. We were fortunate to get Kevin to show us the way in 2009 and had a great day out.
Thanks for the beta. Now that you mention it, I think it was your trip report that originally put this area on my map.
I had read some not so nice TRs on the bedal climb, so I figured I'd try bedal creek instead...
Bedal Pk is still on my list, and hopefully I'll get back to it via the nels lake route soon.
I had read some not so nice TRs on the bedal climb, so I figured I'd try bedal creek instead...
Bedal Pk is still on my list, and hopefully I'll get back to it via the nels lake route soon.
I forgot to post what a great trip report from an area I never get to. Those chutes look awesome on the other side of the drainage. Bedal looked great too!!
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