It’s da Magic SLoop

Hurry up: It’s da Magic SLoop

1/25/25

The Magic SLoop was first thought up by Sky Sjue and completed by him and Dan Helmstadter in June 2007. The route is a loop around Magic Mountain and a descent of Hurry Up Peak via the S Glacier, “Hurry Up: It’s da Magic SLoop”. Sky’s original trip report can be found here: https://skisickness.com/CascadePass/SLoop/

This January of high pressure had us dreaming of spring objectives in winter. Letty and I had originally planned on doing a different objective, however, after a long discussion we opted to go for the Magic SLoop. It was terrain familiar to us, the snowpack was as stable as it can get, and it was an objective that would be enjoyable even with the variable conditions we had gotten reports of.  

We got a bit of a late start, 8:10 am, partly due to our waffling the night before, and we may have gotten a little sandbagged by a friend about how long it would take us… 

As we walked up CRR from the Eldo parking lot we discussed our timing and fully accepted that we would be exiting in the dark, oh well! We only had to walk about a mile and a half before we could start skinning. We made our way up to the Mixup Arm mostly skinning with a couple of sections of booting due to firm conditions. Getting over to Cache Col required some more of the same, more transitions than we had anticipated made the travel slow. We booted up the climber’s left side to Cache Col to get around the cornice. Once there we were greeted with beautiful views of Formidable and Spider. 

Booting up the roll after traversing the Mixup Arm with Sahale in the background

Cache Col in the distance

Climbing up to Cache Col

We cruised firm but supportable snow to Kool-Aid Lake and skinned up to Art’s Knoll. From there we skied more firm snow and traversed over to the bottom of the Plan B Couloir. 

Looking towards Art’s Knoll from Cache Col

The Plan B Couloir was quite firm. Conditions varied from sections of wallowing in soft snow below the crust or front pointing and swinging our single tools. I think both of us wished we had two tools in spots. We topped out the Couloir at 3:30, realizing that we only had about an hour and a half of daylight left. 

Booting up Plan B Couloir with Spider in the background

Topping out Plan B onto the S Glacier, looking out at Sahale and Buckner

The S Glacier skied pretty well. It was wind-affected and chalky at the top. Lower down it was firm but edgeable. As we exited the last gully off the S Glacier we were treated to the start of a beautiful sunset. Alpenglow lit up the peaks around us. We got a great view of Trapper and the N couloir that Letty and I had skied last spring. 

Climbing up to Alliteration Col was the worst travel conditions of the day. There was an extremely firm crust that made skinning challenging, but we were hesitant to switch to booting as we were a little tired of it from the day. We opted to don ski crampons and gingerly made our way to the Col. 

Horrible skinning, but beautiful views of Trapper

At Alliteration Col dusk had descended on us. With beautiful views of Eldorado and Sahale, we turned on our headlamps and descended the Yawning in the dark. The snow on the yawning was the worst we had experienced all day. The top was breaker wind board that then transitioned into breaker crust lower down. We made many jump turns before traversing towards Cascade Pass. 

Dusk on Sahale and Eldorado from Alliteration Col

We had a chill ascent to Cascade Pass following old skin tracks. From Cascade Pass down to the road we skied the best snow of the day.  A mix of facets and firm fast snow.

After changing into our trail runners we started down the dry road reflecting on the day. We were stoked with our effort. Part of why we switched objectives the night before was that we were both looking for a physical challenge, which we achieved. My final stats clocked us at 10,056’, 17.19 mi, and 11hr35min. We felt a little sandbagged looking at our time and what we expected to do it in. However, the travel conditions were much slower than we expected, and even the skiing was slow at points with a lot of crusty jump turns.

The Magic SLoop is a beautiful route with many stunning vantage points. It highlights what I enjoy most about traveling through the mountains on skis; moving through big terrain, long traverses, fun ski descents, and the decision-making that comes with it all. I am looking forward to getting back out there in spring conditions.