The Marble Royal Loop

I haven't written a trip report in quite a while, not exactly sure why, just haven't had the motivation I suppose. I admittedly enjoy lurking around and reading everyone else's, so I suppose it's high time I contributed a little. Also adding to my motivation is the fact that I think this route was pretty darn nice, and someone else would enjoy it too. I haven't found any other info on this tour online.

A few years ago, while up on the Triad, I took a photo from the S faces of Dorado Needle and Tepeh Towers above Marble Creek, showing what looked like some beautiful spring corn runs. Since then it's been high on my list. As Nick and I were throwing around ideas on how to take advantage of the beautiful recent conditions in the Cascade Pass area, I suggested skiing the kumquat, and then over to the Dorodo Needle couloir, and out the SW couloir of Eldorado ("Eldo Royal"). Nick, describing avy debris and runnels, rightly put the kibosh on the kumquat, but the  rest of the idea held merit. Elegance emerged as the route was reenvisioned as a counter-clockwise loop around Eldorado. Who doesn't like a nice circumnav?

We started the day at 5 am. The 6k climb to start went pretty smooth (besides me almost meeting a particularly ignominious end amongst the alder below the wet boulder field boulder problem). After a short run into the McCalister glacier with some surprise boot-top powder, we arrived at the top of the first major run of the day, the Marble Needle Couloir, around 11 am. Corn o'clock hadn't quite arrived, so we bundled up and enjoyed the views for an hour. By the time we skied, the couloir itself was still just slightly scratchy, but still enjoyable, and the more solar slopes below were perfect, creamy corn. Perfect timing! The turns were everything my photo promised, fun, flowy, and with the incredible foreground of the N face of the Triad rising in front of us. We skied fall line to about 5800 feet, then started a downhill traverse, making for an almost 3k corn run. The corn harvest could have been extended perhaps another 1-2k further down, but that seemed a tad greedy (my legs also said no).

By the time we traversed over to the Eldo Royal Couloir, the sun was cooking, and I was a worried we had arrived too late. However we were happy to see that there was minimal hanging snow above the couloir, so we decided to continue with the plan. The baking sun had me feeling a bit worked, but we made it up, thanks in part to a nifty pre-set bootpack from a few days before (thanks Sam and crew). We felt pretty good, so decided to snag the "bonus lap", and skied the chute we had just climbed. The slightly more W aspect of this run had the snow softening right on our schedule, we found more perfect corn turns, sweet!

The second booter went easier than the first (practice makes perfect), and thankfully we still didn't see hardly any snow coming of the sun-warmed rocks on either side. From the top, we found more corn on the Eldorado glacier (at this point we weren't expecting anything less), which eventually transitioned to fun/challenging slush down near the boulder field. It turned out to be an absolutely incredible day, thanks Nick!

I think this is a perfect tour to do when S faces in the area hold good conditions. You get a beautiful tour through incredible surrounding terrain, two really nice couloirs, and lots of really fun moderate angle corn to boot. There's options to add to the route (summit eldorado, another lap in marble creek), or to  shorten it (skip skiing the SW Eldorado couloir, ski from the Tepeh-Dorodo Col instead of the Marble Needle couloir). The way we did it ended up being about 10.2k total. This tour also  follows the sun nicely. You start the day skinning on E facing slopes, enjoying the morning sun, ski the due S Marble Needle Couloir first, and then the SW eldorado Couloir later, which softens a bit later. You could also do this as a nice multi-day, especially if you added a bit more skiing. You should do it!

Since Drew dubbed the SW Eldorado Couloir "The Eldo Royal", I thought a fitting name for this tour would be "The Marble Royal Loop", it evokes quite a stately, majestic vibe, which I think matches the surrounding mountains nicely (except the cumshot, possibly).