Home > Trip Reports > Jan 13-15 2007, Preacher Mtn couloirs (updated 2022)

Jan 13-15 2007, Preacher Mtn couloirs (updated 2022)

1/12/07
WA Snoqualmie Pass
9889
14
Posted by Pete A on 1/15/07 2:35pm

Updated December 2022. When all the old/original TAY trip reports moved to the new format, this one got really mangled - half the text was lost and I think all but one of the picture links broke.  Finally decided to dig through my old backups and repost the text and relink the pictures.  Hope this helps others who want to head out towards Preacher Mountain and are looking for some beta.  Cheers!

Preacher Mtn is about six miles NW of Alpental...the last named peak before the Pratt and Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie join together and snub off the chain of peaks that includes Roosevelt and Chair Peak.  

map of route and chutes

While doing a tour up around Roosevelt and Wright Mtns last spring I saw Preacher Mtn and two distinct couloirs on its southeast side that I really wanted to get back and ski. 

Preacher Mtn and the two chutes (pic from April 2006)

New Years weekend there was good enough weather and Kirsten, Nate, Becky and I were up for heading in there to try skiing them.  Despite good weather and a three day weekend, the short days, lengthy routefinding, and not camping far enough in on the first day caused us to only get to the base of the chutes...we were tantalizingly close, but had to settle for skiing some other fun chutes above Upper Wildcat Lake and only taking pictures of the Preacher chutes, hoping that the weather might cooperate over MLK weekend for another shot.

view of chute 1

another of chute 1

chute 2

Amazingly enough the weather did cooperate this weekend,so the four of us, with our friends Marcus and Anastasia took off Saturday morning hoping for better luck this time.   The ski in went much faster than two weeks ago, and we were able to camp at Lake Caroline instead of our previous camp at Lower Wildcat Lk.   The skiing and skinning on open slopes was good, 6-12" of variable dust on crust...the skinning on steeps or travel through trees was ugly, ski crampons were handy, sometimes boot crampons were necessary to deal with the boilerplate rain crust.

Sunday morning Kirsten, Nate, Becky, and I left camp at dawn heading for the chutes. Marcus and Anastasia opted to explore other slopes around Lake Caroline they had their eyes on.  A quick 700vf descent through boot deep powder (with the occational patch of horrid rain crust when we got too near the trees)  brought us to Hatchet Lake where we toured around to the most accessible ridge we found last time between Hatchet and Derrick Lakes.  Skinning was worthless, so we cramponed up through the trees and gained the ridge.  From the ridgecrest we began the slow work of skis on, skis off, bobbing and weaving between the two sides of Preacher's east ridge.   Eventually we were past spots that had rather ugly, steep runouts and were skinning along the beautiful rolly polly terrain of the NE side of Preacher's upper bowl. 

working our way up the ridge

Northeast bowl of Preacher

cliffs below

view to the north

Four hours after leaving camp we were at the top of chute 1.  There were two entrances...the first left us really disappointed as the entrance was shiny, rough, raincrust all the way across, but we booted around to the second entrance where there was fortunately just enough sastugai and dust on crust to allow for an easy entrance.  The rest was fantastic...granted the snow wasn't perfect, but the top 3/4's of the couloir was shaded enough from the sun that it still had boot/calf deep powder and you didn't even touch down on the old raincrust.  The bottom 1/4 was ugly...we'd seen that it was choked with avy debris on the approach that morning, but we were in the sun by then and it was possible to gorilla stomp some turns through the debris.  The last few hundred vf were back in the shade and powder.

easy entrance into chute

halfway down

Kirsten

'chunky style' snow

happy to be back in the shade

 It was mid-afternoon and we were getting tired, but chute 2 was waiting.  We ate some lunch and rallied...skins back on heading for the next chute.  This one had been in the shade most of the day and had only a few spots of avy debris and suncrust, and much more consistent powder.   We couldn't see a way to tour around to the top of this one, so we just booted it.  An hour before dark and we pointed our skis downhill. Chute 2 was just as much fun as the first. 

 Skinning for chute 2

Becky

Nate

 We rolled in to camp just before dark and promptly slept for about twelve hours. 

 Monday morning the six of us broke camp and skinned across the saddle that divides Lake Caroline from Upper Wildcat Lake.  One final chute to ski, this one was just started to get cooked in the morning sun.  

chute above Upper Wildcat Lake

 From Upper Wildcat Lake we dealt with a cornucopia of challenges...skins icing up and failing off, more attempts to skin on boilerplate in the trees, and even a catastrophic failure of the metal dynafit heel hardware on brand new Scarpa AT boot (voile straps can make a fantastic boot-to-ski retainer in a pinch when the dynafit heel clip falls off a boot).    But we were all back at Alpy by mid-afternoon happy to not spend another night out in the frigid temps.

 

Now there's a novel NIB (Not in Burgdorfer) destination! Way to scout it out!

"NIB".  I like it.
Way to nail a sought after line, Pete.
And a commendable trip given the temps you faced.

Marcus and Anastasia opted to explore other slopes around Lake Caroline they had their eyes on.


Heh! :)  That's a very nice way of saying that Marcus and Anastasia were too tired to get up and keep it going all day with y'all.  Nice work!  That's some beautiful terrain in there and many pretty lines left for the taking.  That NE face of Preacher looks as good as I thought it would.  Glad to keep y'all company at base camp and help divide up the trailbreaking for the hump in there.

Thanks for the great TR and excellent pictures (too bad TAY doesn't allow that much eye candy directly) of a very cool place . Looks like there were some nice little alpine ice climbs back there also. Good-un on ya for keepin' after it in iffy conditions.

Awesome, way to explore.  Being a seeker of long moderates, I have always wanted to ski that NE slope.  Thanks for the pic., maybe now I will actually go.  Beside, Preacher is a "Homecourt 100" I have not done yet!  That and Caroline's big slopes.
Thanks again for sharing,
John

Looks like beautiful terrain back there  :)

Nice work. It looks like you had better luck than I did. Way to get after it :)

Nice trip, Pete!  Those couloirs look delicious.

Pete, Great TR and photos. 

glad y'all enjoyed the TR.  If anyone ever wants to go play on the NE bowl of Preacher, drop me a line...I'd happliy go back in there again.

Way to get it, guys (and gals)!  That shows some commitment.  Great TR and pics.

Great accomplishment, Pete et. al.!

Wow...looks sweet.  Making me long for some more blue sky and white snow.  I got a trip back to the home front in April...so maybe you can show me some of the new stashes you are scouting this year.  Remember not to post the best ones!

This is old news already, but here are some more (okay, a lot more) pics and a little video I put together from footage from the two trips:

Preacher Mountain Couloirs

A couple highlights:


traversing below the east ridge of Preacher


Final icey slopes up to the couloir entrance


Pete skiing the central couloir toward Hatchet Lake

Thanks for researching and organizing this trip, Pete!  It was really cool getting to know such a spectacular and remote area so well.

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jan-13-15-2007-preacher-mtn-couloirs
Pete A
2007-01-15 22:35:08