May 2, 2004, Iron, Bill's and Earl Peaks
5/2/04
2393
1
Jim and I started out with a general plan to ski Iron Peak (6510') via the Beverly Creek drainage. Hiked the dry trail through occasional snow patches for about 2 miles until we were able to put the skis on and connect ribbons of snow. Once across Beverly Creek there was good snow coverage to the top. We ascended via the north ridge, then skied the east face. There was wonderful corn on the steep upper 500 ft, but things got pretty mushy lower down.
With the soft conditions we decided to turn the day into a tour of the area. We re-crossed Beverly Creek, went up the Fourth Creek drainage to Bill's Peak (6917'). Part of the way we followed old skin tracks, probably from John Morrow's group last week . Met 2 climbers on top of Bill's who good naturedly threatened to steal our skis after postholing up on the ascent.
We skied down the east face of Bill's via a fun path through the rocks:
Snow continued to be pretty mushy, so we pushed on to ski the more westernly aspects of Earl Peak (7036') in hopes that conditions would be more firm.
Once on the ridge Jim provided the physic energy to push to the top, or least the top of the snow, which was about a 100' below the summit. On the descent our efforts were rewarded with firmer conditions for most of the 1800' run.
From there things got interesting. Crossing upper Bean Creek was done with a couple of ski steps in shallow water, but then the snow tongue Jim had just ascend broke as I weighed it. Luckily I only landed in a couple of inches of water. We managed to connect snow patches for another half mile before having to hike - the ski bottoms only sustained minor rock damage ;-).
The lower Beak Creek was running much higher than last week, which made for an interesting time as I plunged in again. In general, the snow is melting very fast in the Teanaway area. It was amazing to see the difference from last weeks trip to Earl (see the TAY Homepage for pictures).
With the soft conditions we decided to turn the day into a tour of the area. We re-crossed Beverly Creek, went up the Fourth Creek drainage to Bill's Peak (6917'). Part of the way we followed old skin tracks, probably from John Morrow's group last week . Met 2 climbers on top of Bill's who good naturedly threatened to steal our skis after postholing up on the ascent.
We skied down the east face of Bill's via a fun path through the rocks:
Snow continued to be pretty mushy, so we pushed on to ski the more westernly aspects of Earl Peak (7036') in hopes that conditions would be more firm.
Once on the ridge Jim provided the physic energy to push to the top, or least the top of the snow, which was about a 100' below the summit. On the descent our efforts were rewarded with firmer conditions for most of the 1800' run.
From there things got interesting. Crossing upper Bean Creek was done with a couple of ski steps in shallow water, but then the snow tongue Jim had just ascend broke as I weighed it. Luckily I only landed in a couple of inches of water. We managed to connect snow patches for another half mile before having to hike - the ski bottoms only sustained minor rock damage ;-).
The lower Beak Creek was running much higher than last week, which made for an interesting time as I plunged in again. In general, the snow is melting very fast in the Teanaway area. It was amazing to see the difference from last weeks trip to Earl (see the TAY Homepage for pictures).
Funny - I was posting at the same moment. I deleted mine to keep things clean for Charles, and here's much duplicate information, with opportunity for nitpickers to hunt for the contradictions:
The pull of home duties late on Saturday stopped me from joining a crew heading up for Silver Star on Sunday, so I found Russ a willing partner for a quick stab out to the Teanaway area, thus saving 5+ hours of drive time and a night-before departure. Having thoroughly enjoyed a tour up Earl last weekend (multiple reports from others described the great conditions), I thought it might be worth trying Iron from the Beverly Creek side.
So off we went, leaving the trailhead at about 8:20. We started hitting decent snow patches shortly after crossing Bean Creek, which made me hopeful that we'd soon have the skis off our packs and on our feet. No dice - we finally hit continuous snow fairly far up the valley, as we were more or less at the base of Bill. We wound our way up Iron, seeing one old set of ski tracks. The drizzle stopped and the clouds lifted a bit by the time we summited. We enjoyed the run down the east face from the summit, but not enough to go back for a repeat. Instead, we headed across the head of Beverly Creek and up to the pass over to Fourth Creek, and then up to the top of Bill where we met two snowshoers who envied our skis. We summit lizarded for quite a while, pondering other possible destinations for the remainder of the day, alternating with pondering just sitting still and making a direct line back to the car. We finally shrugged off the mountain stupor and skied directly off Bill down into Bean Creek Basin. We threaded a narrow slot between clifs just below the peak, finding that we couldn't avoid a fairly rotted bit of snow adjacent to a decent sized moat. Fortunatly, it held.
Once down to the flat area down in the basin, we decided that we had at least enough energy to get up to the ridge that leads up toward Earl. With a little bit of threading of melted out sections and fallen logs, we hit the ridge at about 3:20. Though I was tired at this point, I knew that Earl and the top of his wonderful west face (see Charles's photo gallery posted today) was only about 20 minutes further. Surely we could make it up there. Russ agreed, so up we went. I settled into a very slow, methodical pace with a brief pause after sliding each ski forward. The snow on the ridge was getting quite mushy, so we didn't dawdle for long on the northern area of the top of Earl. However, once down perhaps 100 feet, the snow firmed up quite a bit and we had by far the best run of the day. Once back in the basin, however, we had a bit of puzzle to figure out, threading through little creeklets and rock patches. The usual bridge over Bean Creek had melted out. Not being in the mood to head down to the summer trail crossing for a ford through the high water, I found a spot where we could sidestep down onto a mix of log and brush which the skis bridged quite well, only sinking a few inches into the water, then sidestepping back up the other side. Nice. We were able ski a short bit out of the basin and down along the summer trail, but very quickly were packing the skis back up and hiking perhaps the last 1300 vertical back to the car, where the morning drizzle had turned to bluebird sky.
All in all, it was a fun route, made that much more so by stumbling into it rather than making a plan to cover this much ground (Russ says 10.9 miles and 5.7K vertical). We just listened to what the day was telling us. However, this area is pretty much done for the year. Much more meltout and it won't be worth it - some would say we were pushing it a bit, with multiple sketchy stream crossings, lots of bare ground passed, and somewhat scary rotted areas appearing even in the middle of open slopes. It's a short season here if you wait until the road opens.
The pull of home duties late on Saturday stopped me from joining a crew heading up for Silver Star on Sunday, so I found Russ a willing partner for a quick stab out to the Teanaway area, thus saving 5+ hours of drive time and a night-before departure. Having thoroughly enjoyed a tour up Earl last weekend (multiple reports from others described the great conditions), I thought it might be worth trying Iron from the Beverly Creek side.
So off we went, leaving the trailhead at about 8:20. We started hitting decent snow patches shortly after crossing Bean Creek, which made me hopeful that we'd soon have the skis off our packs and on our feet. No dice - we finally hit continuous snow fairly far up the valley, as we were more or less at the base of Bill. We wound our way up Iron, seeing one old set of ski tracks. The drizzle stopped and the clouds lifted a bit by the time we summited. We enjoyed the run down the east face from the summit, but not enough to go back for a repeat. Instead, we headed across the head of Beverly Creek and up to the pass over to Fourth Creek, and then up to the top of Bill where we met two snowshoers who envied our skis. We summit lizarded for quite a while, pondering other possible destinations for the remainder of the day, alternating with pondering just sitting still and making a direct line back to the car. We finally shrugged off the mountain stupor and skied directly off Bill down into Bean Creek Basin. We threaded a narrow slot between clifs just below the peak, finding that we couldn't avoid a fairly rotted bit of snow adjacent to a decent sized moat. Fortunatly, it held.
Once down to the flat area down in the basin, we decided that we had at least enough energy to get up to the ridge that leads up toward Earl. With a little bit of threading of melted out sections and fallen logs, we hit the ridge at about 3:20. Though I was tired at this point, I knew that Earl and the top of his wonderful west face (see Charles's photo gallery posted today) was only about 20 minutes further. Surely we could make it up there. Russ agreed, so up we went. I settled into a very slow, methodical pace with a brief pause after sliding each ski forward. The snow on the ridge was getting quite mushy, so we didn't dawdle for long on the northern area of the top of Earl. However, once down perhaps 100 feet, the snow firmed up quite a bit and we had by far the best run of the day. Once back in the basin, however, we had a bit of puzzle to figure out, threading through little creeklets and rock patches. The usual bridge over Bean Creek had melted out. Not being in the mood to head down to the summer trail crossing for a ford through the high water, I found a spot where we could sidestep down onto a mix of log and brush which the skis bridged quite well, only sinking a few inches into the water, then sidestepping back up the other side. Nice. We were able ski a short bit out of the basin and down along the summer trail, but very quickly were packing the skis back up and hiking perhaps the last 1300 vertical back to the car, where the morning drizzle had turned to bluebird sky.
All in all, it was a fun route, made that much more so by stumbling into it rather than making a plan to cover this much ground (Russ says 10.9 miles and 5.7K vertical). We just listened to what the day was telling us. However, this area is pretty much done for the year. Much more meltout and it won't be worth it - some would say we were pushing it a bit, with multiple sketchy stream crossings, lots of bare ground passed, and somewhat scary rotted areas appearing even in the middle of open slopes. It's a short season here if you wait until the road opens.
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