May 9, 2004, Reversed Birthday Traverse

Feeling markedly anti-social and too weary to face the ten hour round trip, I bailed on the Mt. St. Helens Mothers Day drag fest, heading instead to Washington Pass.  Every so often I hear myself wondering aloud to whoever happens to be within earshot why no one ever does the Birthday Tour backwards, in a clockwise direction.  When questionable weather and miraculously fast snowmelt rendered Sunday's original and backup plans inoperable, I figured it was time I found out.

I left the hairpin turn around 9:00 under thick clouds with the usual enticing bits of blue sky here and there, skinning up to the notch above Kangaroo Pass.  The snow at that hour was still hard-frozen with the exception of east and southeast shots, so I abandoned my plans to climb through the notch into the Copper Creek valley, instead I skied 2000 vertical feet into Twisp drainage, the first 1500 on pretty good corn, the final bits on thinning, then intermittent, finally discontinuous snow in the trees. For better or worse, I ran out of downhill right about the time I ran out of snow.

I then skinned up the north fork valley to about 7200 feet on the shoulder above Copper Pass.  There was good skiing down to 6000 feet along Copper Creek; being alone, I took moderate lines, but I am already castigating myself on this score. Next came the 1600 foot climb to the Blue Lake Col, by which time I was beginning to feel a bit weary.  On the col, the north facing cornice overhangs almost the entire width of the slope, and it is cracking up to 6 feet back from its edge.  In other words, part of the cornice is about to fall off.  Curiously, the boot ladder on climber's left which does an end run on the cornice swerves directly underneath the weakest section.  

The whole point of doing the traverse backwards was to finish off my day with the 2400 foot descent from Blue Lake Col down the gully directly to my van at the hairpin turn. Unfortunately, given the time of day, the bottom 1500 feet of my run consisted of deep, slurpy, slush.  I succeeded in finessing my way down, but such was the effort of skiing the stuff that I found it necessary to stop every five or six turns to pant and catch my breath.  Under the circumstances, it also seemed appropriate to wonder whether this was a good place to be in the first place: as a general rule, I frown on the skiing of thousands of vertical feet in large-scale terrain traps so late in the day. However, I'd seen no significant signs of instability, so I bulled my way down, looking fearfully over my shoulder from time to time and ducking behind whatever minimal shelter I could find at each of my many rest-and-regeneration stops.  

So there it is: upon reflection, the standard route and direction (ignoring Copper Pass in favor of the notch above Kangaroo Pass) is shorter, a bit steeper, and clearly more efficient in terms of effort-per-turn.  The Copper Pass variation offers all the same turning (rather than climb directly to Kangaroo Pass on the return, you can climb to the notch and rejoin the shorter route, thereby not missing any downhill terrain at all), plus one extra moderate run in the bowl on the far side of Copper Pass.  

The reverse direction fails to take into account the changing snow conditions as the day heats up, but certainly gives a different perspective on the route....and, in good snow, the run back to the car from Blue Lake Col is a truly wondrous experience, ending within two feet of your car door.  By contrast, the standard direction finishes with an unsatisfying run through low angle trees and slide paths.  

I did miss the nice, south-facing1600 foot run called Madison Avenue, and this would have been a nice one yesterday despite its southern exposure. On the other hand, I had the entire traverse entirely to myself, in marked contrast to the crowds I've encountered skiing in the other direction. Oh, and I've also been claiming that the hairpin turn and Blue Lake trailhead are at essentially identical elevations.  Actually, there is about a hundred fifty feet difference between the two, so if this seems likely to make a major difference to you over the course of a long day, by all means do the appropriate thing.  

As mentioned earlier, snow coverage is getting scant; I'm guessing 1-2 feet at Rainy Pass, 3-4 at Washington Pass.  Madison Avenue is beginning to get a bit thin in the rock gardens about halfway down, so I'd hit it sooner rather than waiting for later. The major creeks are completely open below about 5500 feet now, and sunny slopes are almost snow free up to near 6000 feet, where they are suddenly snow-covered again.  Although I stayed on skis the entire time, this will not be possible for much longer.  I saw only minor sluffing, even on steep slopes, but there are clear signs of larger slides and cornice collapses scattered everywhere, presumably the result of recent warmer weather.  

YMMV significantly.  

Enjoy,

Mark