Sahale, West Face

Original trip report: https://engineeredforadventure.com/sahale-west-face/

Background

The perseverance tour continued...

The day prior, I skied the north couloir on Trapper Mountain, my third attempt. The other line plaguing me with bails this year has been the West Face of Sahale Mountain. Back in March, Stephen and I had planned to ski it as part of a Forbidden Tour but woke up to ripping north winds on the Quien Sabe. It was a pretty easy bail. Next, still in March, Michael, Porter, Nick and I bailed just about in the same spot as Stephen and I, this time due to strong west winds ripping on the Quien Sabe.

The West Face is a fall-line, 1,000' or so run above the Quien Sabe that is visible from the road. It doesn't see too much sun and is steep at the top, maybe 45 degrees or so, then backs off to a consistent 40 degrees or so. My buddy Todd had skied it, back in the day, and last year Tim Black also skied it; it garnered my attention and I kept thinking about it as the season went on.

Letty and I met up in Darrington. She was psyched on skiing; we tossed around a few ideas, none sticking to the wall perfectly. The west face seemed a good option, it was just tough to swallow the premise of potentially bailing again. The day prior I'd seen some wind affect on west faces so I wasn't sure how things would be holding on up high. We agreed to go check it out, mostly by process of elimination, and hope for the best. Please, please just not a 3rd bail...I might not come back a 4th time.

Trip Report

Weekday tours are the best. We got moving by 6AM, the only souls about. We mosied up the road, a familiar amble at this point. The only bump in the morning came when one of the the La Croix cans I had stashed in my backpack exploded; I only noticed when my butt became quite soggy.

We took Soldier Boy Creek directly up; it's lovely how cruiser that approach can become with a few tries. Once above treeline, deja vu struck. Fuck. Strong east winds ripping over the arm, bearing down on us. Not again. Ski cramponing became tenuous as 30-40 mph gusts pushed on us. We switched to boots, not interested in bracing against each gust of wind. I had a hope that once we got onto the Quien Sabe, beneath the cover of Sahale's upper slopes, we might find wind sheltered terrain.

The snow surface was firm, feeling corn-like. Hmm...how did corn set up that fast? We hoped to find softer snow once we crossed over onto the Quien Sabe. We transitioned at the cross-over 6,300' and briefly skied over to beneath the Quien Sabe. Still firm...

We booted up a bit, then switched to skinning once the Quien Sabe benched out. Once above 6,500' we began to find soft snow, quite wind swept but soft. Phew...hopefully this holds. At one point I stopped to put on sunscreen, stupidly putting my sunglasses on my backpack instead of securing them. With the lighest breath of wind my glasses began to slide down the Quien Sabe, out of sight. Dammit. Thankfully I always carry a second pair of sunnies; no sunnies in springtime is a real day-ender.

We followed skin tracks up towards the West Face, tracks we presumed to be our friend Nick's from days prior. We skinned to the saddle between Boston and Sahale and took skis off, readying for a brief bootpack along the ridge to top out the line. Getting atop the line involved a brief steep booter, not exposed but rimy and a bit hollow at times.

Letty and I topped out the face, just a few feet beneath the summit. I debated going to the tippy tippy top, but a rimy rock step dissuaded me. Reel it in Sam, don't be dumb. As we transitioned we heard a voice and saw a head pop over the summit block.

We clicked in and readied for the ski down. It was alpine pow, wind kissed but still in good shape. Nick's tracks from a few days prior had been smoothed out by the wind, leaving plenty of canvas. Letty went first, as I smashed the shutter.

On the lower face, there are two options around a rock that splits the exit. Letty took skier's right, I took skier's left. The face skied well, a bit sloughy as most spring powder is. Beneath the face the snow was a bit chunky and sun affected but quickly turned to surprising corn on the Quien Sabe. How did corn set up so fast?

I had a gut feeling I could still find my sunglasses. I told Letty to take the Quien Sabe fall line to where we had transitioned in the morning, that I would try and ski down to where my glasses might be and meet here there. We would bump onto the Sahale Arm to get a fall-line run to the car. Sure enough, after some lovely corn turns I found them! I was stoked to not have to buy a new pair.

We bumped up onto the arm, snacked on a rock, and readied for more corn down to the car. We skied directly down Soldier Boy Creek, finding great corn until it turned to moosh beneath 4500' or so.

Back at our shoes, we enjoyed the remaining cans of La Croix that had not exploded as we walked down the road back to our cars. We met up with Nick, Mike, and Bri, hanging and hearing about their trip on the north side of Buckner and Forbidden.