May 17-18 - West McMillan Spire

(November 4th, 2004)

Email from Sky Sjue:

Tony-

McMillan is essentially my top priority for the winter. But let me readjust your view to give you the correct perspective:

here

Aha!

I€™ll give you a shout when I return. If the weather looks OK and you€™re interested I€™m sure I€™ll be looking to make some turns next weekend (Nov 13-14).

Latah

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Peter Hirst and I were debating about what to do this weekend. The weather was looking picture perfect but the avalanche conditions were not completely desirable. Anything facing North could be a dangerous place to attempt to ski and some of our objectives were too far away to do in a day and a half. Pete had a great idea; we should hike into the Southern Pickets and ski West McMillan Spire. Sky, Jason and Phil had skied this summit for the first time last year under perfect winter conditions. West Mac was definitely in the top 10 ski trips of the year and with only a day and a half, and it€™s perfect location made it feasible with our limited amount of time.

We left Seattle around 2pm and began hiking from the trailhead around 5pm. We made it the top of the ridge, about a thousand feet below the col at dark and made camp. The weather was perfect and we slept like babies. At about 4:30 Pete asked me to get the water boiling for coffee. By 5am we were hiking towards Terror Basin. We were making really good time and ended up at the small lake at the base of the McMillan Glacier by about 9:30. Conditions were steady except the temperature began to warm but the higher we went the cooler it seemed. At the col right before heading up the west ridge we noticed the wind was getting stronger and clouds were beginning to close in on us. The last hour of climbing was when most of the clouds came in and right at the point where we knew we would not be able to ski through the rocky sections we decided to make our descent. We guessed the spot to be less than 100′ from the summit. From that point the skiing was perfect. The pitch was steep and the snow was nicely consolidated. We skied back down the couloir and out in a matter of minutes.

After taking an hour break we pushed to get back out of Terror Basin and back to camp. We made it out by 4pm and began skiing down the ridge to the snow line. Somewhere around 3500′ we had to stop skiing because the snow inside of the dense forest was making it counter productive and we would be able to move faster on foot. Another 500′ and we were back to where the snow was patchy and the trail was finally visible. Another hour and we were on the Goodell Creek trail. Another hour and a half with a few interesting creek crossings and we were back at the car. We made the round trip in about 26 or 27 hours.

Sorry no photos.