May 9, 2008, Colchuck/Dragontail
5/9/08
WA Cascades East Slopes Central
3256
0
I was able to convince Monika that she needed to show me the great line that they (Sky, Erik, Ryan, Monika) skied last weekend - NE Couloir on Colchuck. For some reason she thought that getting going at 01:40 was a good idea. Parking about 1.5 m from the trailhead. Road should be melted out real soon to the trailhead. Many sections of the trail will also be melted out soon, now is time if you want to ski to the trailhead. Clear skies at night made for hard snow travel. Followed tracks from the day before to Colchuck Lake. Lake frozen solid, watch the edges late on a hot day.
I was at this point not feeling very good and about 1k above the lake I discover that olives on a pizza do not digest in under 8 hours, no matter which exit. Pace slowed due to feeling like crap. Monika, like the hard... she is broke trail up the NE Couloir. The sun came out, but there was a bit of hazy skies. Monika remarked that the conditions were different from when she was there only a few days ago. The sun had done some damage to the snow. We were hoping the sun would soften the hardened snow. Head to the grindstone for quite a while and finally around 8 am we were over the cornice which was with the harder snow easier to climb over than on Sunday.
The snow in the gulley was too hard to safely ski in both our opinions, even with the sun on it. It was cold up there this early in the day. Getting down it with skis on could be done, but would have required alot of side stepping and maybe some belayed skiing. A fall would have dire consequences so we went to the top instead. Skied down to the couloir after summiting, but it still looked like it hadn't softened a bit so we skied down to the col and hiked up the couloir lookers right from the col and traversed to the summit of Dragontail and took a nap. Reversed the route and skied down Colchuck Glacier to the lake. Snow was still hard; only about 1000 ft above the lake did it start to soften.
Met a party that was coming down the NBC and they reported soft conditions with one hairy section with ice on rocks that could be skied carefully or downclimbed. There is water on the side of the lake and we served ourselves. Back to the trailhead at 2 pm. Nice trip - thank you Monika for putting up those great steps!
I was at this point not feeling very good and about 1k above the lake I discover that olives on a pizza do not digest in under 8 hours, no matter which exit. Pace slowed due to feeling like crap. Monika, like the hard... she is broke trail up the NE Couloir. The sun came out, but there was a bit of hazy skies. Monika remarked that the conditions were different from when she was there only a few days ago. The sun had done some damage to the snow. We were hoping the sun would soften the hardened snow. Head to the grindstone for quite a while and finally around 8 am we were over the cornice which was with the harder snow easier to climb over than on Sunday.
The snow in the gulley was too hard to safely ski in both our opinions, even with the sun on it. It was cold up there this early in the day. Getting down it with skis on could be done, but would have required alot of side stepping and maybe some belayed skiing. A fall would have dire consequences so we went to the top instead. Skied down to the couloir after summiting, but it still looked like it hadn't softened a bit so we skied down to the col and hiked up the couloir lookers right from the col and traversed to the summit of Dragontail and took a nap. Reversed the route and skied down Colchuck Glacier to the lake. Snow was still hard; only about 1000 ft above the lake did it start to soften.
Met a party that was coming down the NBC and they reported soft conditions with one hairy section with ice on rocks that could be skied carefully or downclimbed. There is water on the side of the lake and we served ourselves. Back to the trailhead at 2 pm. Nice trip - thank you Monika for putting up those great steps!
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