TR Replies

Love the sound of the birds in the forest this time of year. Especially that signature buzz of the varied thrush

So weird. Something must've gotten into his meth.

The grooming on the road ended for the season the weekend prior and the temps had spiked for a couple days before, so all the sledders bailed. The weekend prior all the sno park lots were full and sledders were plentiful. Check out Davis Peak next time you're out there.  Has good corn in the spring and some nice N facing coolies off the east side, that terminate near the river level.  And a very shore approach for a cardio machine, like you.  

Aaron you were the first people we passed (more like got passed by) all day! Looks like you found some great stuff back there!

Jim: "Over the years many of us quit doing detailed and photo filled TRs and just posted a quick conditions report for a general area (north slopes around Stevens Pass, etc.) to help others in planning. I certainly appreciated that myself."

Hi Jim, I too thought that was a nice middle ground that helped in planning w/o leaving the metaphorical "bread crumb path" in to a...

That's probably about correct timing for N Fk to be melted at Beverly turnoff, Fish Lake open to Camp Creek, give or take a week

kinda low, call CERD for status

I think at first those sort of conditions TRs moved over to Facebook, but even now, those groups are too big and community too large for people to feel comfortable sharing their stashes. NWAC obs seems to be the best place to get conditions info, or following the correct people on Strava. The scarcity mindset has taken hold. I personally mostly write TRs about interesting, off the beaten path stuff because I know that I don't need to encourage more people to go to a popular zone like the Sour...

The 4315 Road is, in fact, driveable to this day to the divide and is gated in the summer.  Known as the "Storey Road".  As is the Howson Cr Road a few miles to the south.  it is short but there is a really fun N Facing line on the western spur summit of Sasse Mtn out of that Howson parking on the Sac Road.

Meaningless note:  I have never been thrilled with teh name Louvre.  It was a poetic license creation of peakbaggers that I thought negated local knowledge...

Hi Kyle,

One of the reasons the area between Jolly and Hawkins has remained so quiet for so long is it takes a really strong skier to reach all that in one day.  Though there are more and more of you very strong skiers today.  Gear has gotten so light and good, and technical ski ability for some of the steep starts is now more common as well.  There has been a movement for 25 years to bring attention to the area as designated non-motorized, though 

As an old timer I pine for the good ole days when Sky and Jason posted magazine quality first descents that I enjoyed reading to get psyched. Over the years many of us quit doing detailed and photo filled TRs and just posted a quick conditions report for a general area (north slopes around Stevens Pass, etc.) to help others in planning. I certainly appreciated that myself. Now even that seems to have faded or moved over to Facebook where it is much harder to find IMO. The telemetry sites are...

Thanks John. Those Obs are a resource. I always look locally, but I can see how they could be used for other areas. 

i started writing trip reports on Rec.climbing as Avajane in the early days on the internet when it was on Newsgroups. Just took Ava Jane skiing at Blewett yesterday, and she’s almost 30…Time moves on. Maybe a young person should take over TAY and they could figure out how to make it “in” again. 

In so many respects I think the majority of long time Cascade BC skiers are protecting their stashes.  I am open to hearing criticism for this, but it seems that some folks are using NWAC Recent Obs as the new TR dump. Oft thinly veiled as snow stability obs.  I don't mind, as it is my answer to Avajane's question.  I visit there for the most up to date condition info.  What isn't shared there, nor is it meant to be, is the detailed tour descriptions of TAY past. &nbs...

Inspiring!  What a string of cool descents ....thanks for putting this TR together!

@avajane I agree 100% with kamtron and have a suggestion for improving your experience here. Instead of using trip reports to tell you when & where to ski, why not try doing things the other way around? First pick an objective that you're excited about, then find the right day for it, and THEN look for trip reports that might help you understand what the route is like and keep you from getting lost or cliffed out. 

Strong work! That's a lot of heavy skiing for one day. Glad you guys made it out safely and nice running into you on the summit for round two the next day!

Cool exploratory tour. I've always wondered about those slopes as you drive by on I-90. Thanks for the post.

I skied this zone on Monday. Snow falling and accumulating down to 2,000', above 3,500' it was really stacking up, especially on leeward slopes. Down low, coverage was surprisingly thin, but I somehow made my escape through the trees without any rock or stump encounters. 

This is superfun with a 2nd vehicle at Annette TH!  When I had a larger radius backcountry community it made the shuttle stuff easy to meet someone coming from the westside, rendezvousing us east siders at Annette TH. Leave their vehicle and driving back to Silver Fir.  Then getting the ride back to Silver Fir at the end of the day.  

Sshhhh.... 😂

I’m not aware of proposals for a ski area on Silverstar. The one proposed for the Methow Valley was on Sandy Butte, a bit farther east. There were also proposals for Liberty Bell basin, Cutthroat Pass and Hart’s Pass. The Mt Cashmere proposal was backed by several folks including Bill Stark, who with his wife Peg was known for naming many of the features in the Enchantments. Here are a couple references:

Oh yea, come mid-late feb the sun is high enough to start melting out the lower elevations, in deep winter snow lingers around longer even in Leavenworth vs the next town over Peshastin. And the Icicle is just cold! Its interesting what makes a good ski season in the stuart range, its similar to the Argentiere basin in Cham the steeper lines come into shape with the wet spring snow. I think some of the steep lines dont accumulate much snow when its coming down cold but then benefit from some...

Aww yea our back yard holds some good ones....the un named peak next to Cashmere is called the Black Pyramid. Lots to ski on Cashmere, and in fact it was almost home to a world destination ski area, complete with condos up and down the icicle, WHEW glad we dodged that bullet. Also, not sure how long you have been skiin in the range, but this is a fairly average snowpack down low for most of the 20 years ive been skiing here. Glad you had a good one up there! thats a special place...

Well done!

Thanks for sharing the stoke ... totally allowed, just updated the TR date to 5/9/2009. (If folks sort by the submission date, it'll come up in recent submissions, if they sort by the TR date, it'll show up where it needs to : )