March 6, 2008, McClellan Butte
3/6/08
WA Snoqualmie Pass
2596
6
Managed to drive to about 1800ft, left the car at dawn...two bare patches on the road, otherwise a continuous skin/ski to the car.
North couloir (Wood creek) had been skied by three folks the day before so it was unfortuantely pretty thrashed...soft snow scraped away and refrozen debris littered the narrowest sections...we skinned/booted/wallowed/swam our way up the couloir (huge thanks to Monika for being the trail-breaking machine that she is).
The top few hundred feet were deep powder and surprisingly good, then when we got to the choke point of the chute, Monika spied a western chute that lead over towards the N bowl of McClellan...seeing as that option was untracked we took it. Managed to find reasonable non-crusty snow the whole way back to the road.
Done before noon and some of our party returned to the city to work, Monika, Becky, and I headed on up to the pass...skinned up next to the Phantom and dropped in to Thunder Creek basin at the slot couloir exit chute...still managed to find some decent powder lurking the shade.
Re- McClellan....rather than booting up the couloir direct...it seemed like a reasonable and much easier approach (at least when theres a deep low elev. snowpack) to reverse our route and skin up the north bowl and then pop into the north couloir for the final 500'.
North couloir (Wood creek) had been skied by three folks the day before so it was unfortuantely pretty thrashed...soft snow scraped away and refrozen debris littered the narrowest sections...we skinned/booted/wallowed/swam our way up the couloir (huge thanks to Monika for being the trail-breaking machine that she is).
The top few hundred feet were deep powder and surprisingly good, then when we got to the choke point of the chute, Monika spied a western chute that lead over towards the N bowl of McClellan...seeing as that option was untracked we took it. Managed to find reasonable non-crusty snow the whole way back to the road.
Done before noon and some of our party returned to the city to work, Monika, Becky, and I headed on up to the pass...skinned up next to the Phantom and dropped in to Thunder Creek basin at the slot couloir exit chute...still managed to find some decent powder lurking the shade.
Re- McClellan....rather than booting up the couloir direct...it seemed like a reasonable and much easier approach (at least when theres a deep low elev. snowpack) to reverse our route and skin up the north bowl and then pop into the north couloir for the final 500'.
Way to get after it, Pete. It's so awesome how the low-elevation snowpack lets us harvest the range's full vertical potential.
Nice Pete -- I've been wondering how that north bowl access was... good work.
Nice - busy week for you! Makes me want to quite work (it's been a long week, but not of skiing...).
I drove over the pass last weekend, looked up that chute and thought for the first time in many years "Hmmmm that looks like a good ski".
I guess I wasn't the only one.
Nice work!
I guess I wasn't the only one.
Nice work!
author=Pete A link=topic=9401.msg37908#msg37908 date=1204910068]North couloir (Wood creek) had been skied by three folks the day before so it was unfortuantely pretty thrashed...
Actually there were two of us (although we took an extra lap in the lower couloir). We didn't make it to the very top of the couloir because of shooting cracks where it was a bit windloaded:
The alternate line you took looks like a good option, thanks for pointing that out!
Thanks for the picture Mike.
The skiing was stellar on Wednesday morning and so was the weather. The gully was filled much higher than when I skied the couloir last year around the same time, so skinning was an option even high up in the couloir.
The skiing was stellar on Wednesday morning and so was the weather. The gully was filled much higher than when I skied the couloir last year around the same time, so skinning was an option even high up in the couloir.
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