TR Replies
Very cool - to what elevation did you have to drop on the north side before cutting west to climb out of the Thunder Creek drainage? It's a bit hard to make out from your map.
Thanks for the report; this place is hard to get to but it looks beautiful.
Thanks, all.
Cumulus, it's a Panasonic ZS80, which has a built-in 30x zoom! Loving it.
beautiful! ...and vicarious for this recent titanium inductee
a little red flag flying in the white and blue landscape
What camera did you get?
It's been a few days and the wind picked up, so things are different now
Sweet thanks Tim. I would also need a rope gun for the ice. The skiing sure looks fun, and just one other party - wow, you scored!
@kamtron I'm not an ice climber and wouldn't have done this without a partner who could lead ice. The amount of ice climbing required on the route at present is pretty small and not too difficult, but still. There was one other group ahead of us and no one behind us. It wasn't a problem having people ahead of us, we caught up with them at the summit and all descended together joining 2 60m ropes. My partner and I only had a single 60, so it was actually quite lucky to have the other group the...
Also, did you have to deal with crowding or concern of sluffs onto other parties? Looks busy!
Cool, big lines.
How did you build up to the technical skills of the grand? I'm curious since I am not much of an ice climber
This is the way to do it, nice work!
@stuegie round trip was about 20 miles.
@pete-a thanks for the inspiration!
wow! that's a long day! Great job, and thanks for putting up the trip report.
Nice work! Saturday was a perfect day for slaying couloirs! Glad you got some…we thought we were getting remote - what do you reckon your mileage was RT?
This Report has come and gone but I,d insert some pics by Don Thompson for posterity!
Yep, Gary, 5 hours of driving, 5 hours of skiing. It was really hard to leave Indian Rock and the Mazama glades with so much powder and daylight left. I wish they would at least go back to 5pm.
Robie, yes, that's where I entered. I then skinned one more from the bottom straight back up and did it all over again. So good yesterday!
I am trying to practice my version of getting back to basics.
I think everyone would agree that the number of winter backcountry enthusiasts has grown, maybe exponentially, in the last 20 years.
Watching places that saw few, if any, visitors become frequented. Not that outdoor enthusiasm isn’t fantastic, but so is responsibly and sustainably recreating. Personally, I began viewing the act of writing TRs positively correlated with the massive influx of people ski to...
This route was still very good today, Sunday 3/26. North side had excellent snow quality, untouched since the Friday evening dump. The bottom is a little more melted out than in the above report, but that was really only an issue on that last 50ft down to the trail (if you happen to come out at that same culvert). Also did a couple runs in the upper NE bowl (very nice), and took a quick look on the west side (came back up because it was all roller balls). Can't get enough of the Humpback. It...
Blackdog, thanks for your reply! The big rock is/was known as Indian Rock. Fun skiing in that area Ive always entered from the top and south .
Gary , I wish you wudnt mentioned "Instant Gratification"😉 but you are right about entering it about 200ft or so south. And yes with this much snow the river shud have multiple places to cross.
A further note on "Instant Gratification"
If unsure of the snowpack its best to poke around a bit before attemping
Good to hear; thanks, Robie!
We used to call blackdog's "Steep trees" - Mazama 'Glades'. The shade and slightly northerly aspect keep powder longer than the adjacent big open 'Mazama Face' or '911'. It's usually simple this time of year to cross the Paradise River directly on drifts, saving a kilometer or so each way on the unplowed road..
The Paradise lot is plowed by pushing snow to the Valley Road corner and sometimes bulldozing it over the side. So the fi...
Really nice report. I enjoyed that very much.
I think this is the kinda report Avajane was referring to that we don't see much of on TAY anymore. I'm glad Robie wrote it up. It gave me the motivation to pack my stuff this morning and head to Paradise.
Bundy's, 911, and Mazama all skied fantastic. Skied the southern end of Mazama under the big rock. I typically don't get down that far. There's some really steep trees in there that are super fun. Clouds, sun, pow, snow! Great day (except for the 4pm ga...
Thanks Robie and Will,
I appreciate the replies!
John
Wonder if people's dwindling narrative skills has anything to do with it? It takes time and effort to draft a compelling TR, skills that may be fading.
But enter Chat GPT! Maybe there is a well-written TR wave coming!
Nice to see a Morrow trip report :) .
Love the sound of the birds in the forest this time of year. Especially that signature buzz of the varied thrush
Adventurous trip. On more than a few days this season the by-far best snow of the tour has been at very low elevations on what you'd typically think of as the exit rather than the main event.
So weird. Something must've gotten into his meth.
Yeah, Davis looks like an excellent corn ski. So I guess the sno park is more full mid winter with sledders when the grooming is still going. I thought the warm temps and crusty snow might cause the machines to overheat some.
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.
On his website Seth
https://engineeredforadventure.com/tube-of-terror-pipe-dream/
I think this is the third person I've heard of getting death threats from this guy.
Aaron you were the first people we passed (more like got passed by) all day! Looks like you found some great stuff back there!
I passed you guys on your way out, on the whooped out road. Thought I recognized you Kyle from your TRs. Should have stopped to say hi, but we had been smashing pow in the alpine all day and I was dreaming of my beer at the the truck, just minutes away via sled. Your reach on foot is truly remarkable. Far beyond the average skier.
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...
Am I missing the part about the hostile snowboarder?
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
That's still really helpful, gets you a thousand feet off the bottom. By the time you can drive to that gate, probably lots of other attractive things (Teanaway, etc) have started melting out.
@john-morrow where is FS 4315 gated? Driving partway up the road would be very useful in the spring for corn tours. Your photos from spring look wonderful back there.
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...
@JohnMorrow thank you for the great explanation into the history of this area. I'll add details to my blog about Ladybug.
I had the same thought about a hut system in this area with the new Fortune Creek Hut over on the Esmerelda Road. There is a road system up to Sasse Ridge, but I am not sure if it is drivable in the summer?
Interesting history about voluntary non motorized designation. My goal is not to necessarily encourage a "takeover" by non motorized users or vice versa...
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
Magnificent!
Always been a big fan of you and your reports.
Thanks
Robie
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...