Shuksan, Price NE Chute + N Face BYS Couloir

Original, un-edited trip report: https://engineeredforadventure.com/shuksan-price-ne-chute-north-face-bys/

Background

Early in the week, Thomas sent me a text about Shuksan. In it, he had an elegant proposal: the northeast chute of the Price Glacier.

The week prior, our buddies Lane and Manny had done the Nooksack Traverse and had snapped photos of the upper Price Glacier from the route. The NE Chute of the Price Glacier looked in good shape, from afar at least.

The northeast chute of the Price Glacier (I'll refer to it as the Price NE Chute hereafter) was first skied by Sky Sjue and Ben Kaufman in 2004. The duo climbed the Price, from the bottom up, in wild fashion. Sky also returned later that year with Ross Peritore to ski it from the tippy top, steep runnels and all. Talk about "ski sickness"...

The Price NE Chute is obviously striking from the Nooksack Cirque but hidden from White Salmon side; if you didn't scour the internet or traverse the Nooksack, you'd likely never hear about it or see it. It's a striking line, nearly 1,000' of steep, fall line high above the Price Glacier. The crux of the line is getting in; there's often a huge cornice guarding the entrance, just below the North summit of Shuksan.

From afar, Lane's photos from the Nooksack showed the huge cornice. I'd been out on Shuksan the day before, skiing the North Face, finding good stable snow. We had a crew assembled: Lane, Thomas, Manny, and Nate. A group of 5 felt too big but we acknowledged that we could separate the group, if need be. We'd coordinate skiing the line together, at the least, so as not to cause issues. Lane, Nate and I were psyched to try the North Face to BYS Couloir on the way back to the car; Manny and Thomas were psyched on NWC. The second half of the day seemed a natural split of the group, based on interests.

Trip Report

You know it's going to be a good day when you can poop at 4AM.

Alarms were set for 4AM; a Red Bull, bagel, miraculous poop, and we were off. Thomas and Manny had started just ahead of us and we caught them after making our way down into the White Salmon drainage. The entry into the valley wasn't great but was manageable.

We seemed to be nearly the only ones out, no other headlamps around...wild for a Friday. The calmness of the morning was rare, no wind and no voices about.

We made quick work of the approach, through the debris piles and up the White Salmon. Our goal was to be atop the North Summit between 9-10AM, in time to be dropping the Price NE Chute. A pretty uneventful climb up to the Upper Curtis put us at the north summit right on schedule. Things were going smoothly, dudes were feeling good, and stoke was high.

Once we reached the north summit, the quest to find a way into the line began. We could see massive cornices towards the summit and proceeded with high caution when venturing towards the edge. Lane spotted a sneak down, next to a rock, that led straight into the line. SCORE! He returned, with a huge smile...Guys, it looks fucking awesome.

We talked about how to space the group out; Lane would drop first, me second, then Nate, then Manny, and finally Thomas. Each of us would ski the entire pitch to below the bergschrund, where it flattens out. There was a small flat perch on which to transition to skis, wide enough for two people at a time. Lane downclimbed with skis through the sneak, then I followed.

Looking down, the line looked beautiful. Planar, smooth, 45 degrees or so, in a ridiculous setting. Yeah, this is fucking awesome. Lane clicked in, toes locked ready to rock. There was a small drop to get off the perch...he pushed off, and slid in.

It's kinda icy, be careful, he reported back. He found there was good snow but beneath, maybe 2-3 inches down, there was a firm icy base. It didn't seem consistent everywhere, but at the end of the push to get into the line. I hadn't had any concern about sliding in before he mentioned it, but if Lane reports back with caution that's saying something. I paused for a few moments, trying to assess my strategy. Just gotta push out...in steep skiing sometimes fear is but for a few moments. I pushed out, sliding out to Lane. He was right, good snow but for the end of the shush out. I backtracked a bit off the icy spot into a softer spot to watch Lane drop.

Lane made beautiful turns down the face, with a diagonal pattern to avoid his fast running slough. The slough ran the full length of the face, gathering at the bottom. It's great snow guys, just fast slough. My turn next...I didn't ski as quickly as Lane, pausing in a few spots to let my slough go by. The snow was indeed exceptional, soft on a supportive base. The position and snow, combined, were outrageous. I skied down to Lane, pole tapped, fuck yea dude. I radioed up that I was safe, grabbed my camera as soon as I could, and began pressing the shutter in rapid fire to get Nate, Manny, and Thomas skiing down.

We skied down to the flat bench at 7,500' below the line and took a few moments to take in the position. We looked over to the Price Headwall, over at the Nooksack Tower, and the Price Glacier below. It felt both outrageously wild and also like a ticking clock. No time to dawdle, time to get moving. We had brought ascent plates for the booter out of the line...well, 3 of us had; Manny and Thomas had left them at home. After snapping a few photos and videos, Lane and I charged up to set booter. Small rollerballs fell off the cliffs to the sides but nothing huge was moving. We wanted to keep it that way.

The booter was a sweaty one but went quickly. We did our best to stay out of the line of fire of the cornice, climbing as far to climber's right as possible. Instead of re-tracing our ski line directly, we climbed towards the ridgeline above it and took a snow ramp back to our transition spot. Within an hour we were back on top, beneath the north summit, or 'Mt. Nub' as we had dubbed it.

A well deserved snack break back below Mt. Nub and we chatted about the rest of the day. Nate, Lane, and I were still psyched on the BYS; Manny and Thomas were still psyched on the NWC. It was time to split the group and go our separate ways. We'd talked about summiting the mighty Mt. Nub but Nate/Lane/myself were ready to go skiing and didn't want to wait for high clouds to potentially roll in. Manny and Thomas were stoked on the nub, so we fist bumped and planned to meet back at the parking lot.

We pushed off from Nub down towards the North Face. Similar to one day prior, we found chalk-pow on the upper headwall, but more 3D sastrugi than the day prior on the lower snowfield. We skied down to the connector to the BYS, taking a left-hand turn instead of right. Our plan was to ski the BYS couloir, then traverse out into the NWC. We'd sighted it from the White Salmon drainage and it looked manageable...we thought we might have to sidestep up to get atop but we weren't sure.

Atop the BYS, we looked down. A beautiful, plumb line that seemingly leads to nowhere. Looking down, we all knew what we were above but you really can't tell: huge cliffs. No messing up here. I led us down, finding firm windboard that was pretty consistently supportable. Almost like chalk...Washington chalk. I took the pitch down to the end of the main couloir, found a safe spot, then radioed back up to Nate and Lane that I was safe.

Nate came next and met me at the end of the couloir. I got hit by a rock dude...caught me off guard. A small falling rock had pegged Nate in the shoulder! Thankfully he was okay and didn't get pushed off balance. Spooky! Lane came next, without incident.

The traverse looked very simple, more simple than it had from below. No sidestepping was going to be necessary, we simply would push out and end up in the NWC! Lane went first, without incident. I followed, then Nate. Yes, there was huge exposure below but the snow was secure; just don't look down.

We'd managed the crux and were now in the bottom of the NWC. We looked up, to make sure Manny and Thomas weren't dropping above us. They're probably still on Mt. Nub. I pushed off into NWC, finding kinda garbage-y snow and plenty of slough debris from skiers before. We met up at the bench beneath NWC, looking back up at our traverse track out of the BYS.

We sat down, for a moment, to soak in the day. We were back in the White Salmon drainage, out of harms way, with only the dirt booter out to the ski resort left. We'd skied the Price NE Chute, ate lunch beneath the mighty Mt. Nub, and skied the BYS. I opened up a PB&J and munched away...

After a monotonous booter out of the White Salmon we were back in the parking lot, draping wet gear to dry out in the early afternoon sun. We'd made it back to the cars by 1PM or so. We popped camp chairs and looked out at Shuksan, stoked to soak in the rest of the day with boots off and reclined. Lane had the brilliant idea to get burgers from the White Salmon lodge...man, those fries are goooooood. No better way to top off a great day of skiing. We spent the afternoon chilling, scheming our mission for the next day...