TR Replies

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 : )

Such a fun line! I've always wondered how one could approach this from above - thanks for posting.

@bigeo Bryant Couloir was downright bad haha. Very chopped up and nasty. 

@cumulus super cool to hear the history of the line!

Saw you over there from the bench N of Chair Pk Lake. It must have been during your "existential crisis" as you were static for a time. We speculated on the discussion that was going on. Wish I had taken a zoomed in shot. Good to hear that it was a positive experience. How was Bryant Couloir?  We had intended to do the CP circumnav, but switched to Holy Diver thinking the snow would be better. It was, in fact, Primo.

FWIW:  Jim Oker and I and several other volunteers I've recruited have done brushing along that old logging road to make it easier to follow in the last several years.    This route has a lot of sentimental value to me as my dad and I used to ski it on the way to Mt Margaret back when the clear cuts were fresh and wide open and our ski bases smelled of Pine Tar. 

Probably 24”. Just working on Saturday. There is a facebook group called tronson non motorized trail workers. Join up with that and we can meet up some other time. Fall is when most

work parties are set up. But then after every big storm…..Thats why the roads and trails are usually cleared. FS does not do it.

What is "good sized"?  18, 24, 36" diameter?  Can help on Sunday and have a saw if there is a crew going in then, booked on Saturday.

I’m an old rock climber that grew up getting lost on climbs following bs directions that only made sense to the guy writing them.  Half the time they were just wrong. The good ol days weren’t that great. When topo’s came out, many thought it would be the death of adventure, but it wasn’t. You just didn’t get lost as much, and you typically climbed harder. We follow skin tracks and most don’t complain about that. How is GPS that different?  Every time something new comes out there is...

The bowl used to see much high marking snowmobile wilderness poaching.  Was the evidence of that still as apparent as in the past?  it is a long way to drop in and climb out of it from Smithbrook and sad when it is rendered unskiable by deep highmark trenches after working hard to reach it.

I appreciate the discussion.  My two cents is that I am glad I was skiing the I-90 and Hwy 2 corridors in a time when there was scant information out there.  Mostly the Burgdorpher guidebook.  We found such an awesome sense of discovery by remembering how potential openings and spaced trees looked on summer hikes and translating them into very fun winter adventures.  Then furthering our understanding by passing through and standing on top of high places looking out at futu...

Who knew the Rampart paragliding launch was also the top of a ski run?!

I have mixed feelings about giving out detailed GPX tracks (which is different than posting a map, like this). GPX allows people to follow your path to the foot. I try not to encourage people to follow GPX tracks in alpine environments, especially in the summer, where foot impact is higher. If the GPX track is helping people find an efficient approach on snow and avoid a bunch of BS (like in this case), I'm more likely to share it. I only really ever look at my phone below treeline because th...