Skip to Photos
New Year's in the Cascades backcountry! The forecast was
looking pretty decent for most of the three-day weekend,
and this time of year "decent" means good. So
Murray, Becky, Pete, Kirsten and I headed out early Saturday
morning. The objective was to ski at least one of two chutes
on Preacher Mountain that Pete had noticed on a trip last
spring. We had about 4 miles and 2500 feet to travel to
our camp at Upper Wildcat Lake. We figured it would take
4 hours at most, and once we got in we could take some turns
on the surrounding slopes. The weather turned out much better
than we expected -- clear blue skies for most of the day
and barely a flutter of a breeze.
But not all things worked in our favor. Avalanche conditions
were tricky. We came across a couple recent slab releases
due to a considerable wind crust that had formed. These
conditions convinced us to take a more gradual route to
camp--one which was more tedious. We made it to Lower Wildcat
Lake quite a bit later than we expected and decided to make
camp there instead of continuing to the upper lake. By the
time we pitched our tents and dug out a group kitchen there
was only an hour of daylight left, and we stayed in camp
for the rest of the day. This was much to Murray's dismay
as he planned to head back on Sunday instead of Monday with
the rest of us. That meant that not only did he not get
to take any real turns today, but because the route took
longer than we expected, he decided he did not have time
to tour with us tomorrow. Instead he would have to head
back in the morning, so he wouldn't get in any real turns
tomorrow either, aside from the few slopes he would have
to descend on the way out.
Murray made the most of the situation though, and taught
us how to build a great fire in the snow, and after dinner,
when the sun had been down for a couple hours, he surprised
us with a firework show! He brought in about a dozen bottle
rockets and half a dozen roman candles. He lit off most
of them, but left a few behind so that we could use them
to celebrate New Year's the next night.
After getting a much-too-casual start to the morning, we
bid farewell to Murray and headed off on our tour. After
negotiating our way up steep slopes above Upper Wildcat
Lake, around wide cirques above Derrick Lake, and across
three lakes, we neared the couloir. Unfortunately, it was
one o'clock -- getting close to our 1:30 turn around time.
We figured it would take at least another hour, maybe an
hour and a half to get to the top of the couloir, so we
cut our losses and took the scenic route back so that we
could hit a couloir on Mt Caroline. The weather was perfect
and we had headlamps, so why not!
We traversed across the long eastern face of Mt Caroline,
and finally after a full day of what seemed like endless
up we got to take some turns. It was about a 1,000 foot,
mostly fall-line descent of probably about 30 degrees. The
snow was pretty variable, from unbreakable crust, to soft
crust, to old powder, the latter of which was a joy after
the extensive range of crust variations we had come across
thus far on the trip. It was also a joy to watch Kirsten
bouncing in and out of the crust on her new, super-fat,
dynafit-mounted Janaks! Pete and Becky also skied it very
well, but have to mention Kirsten's performance because,
well, she's my wife, naturally, but also becasue breakable
crust used to be her nemesis, so it was pretty sweet to
see her bust through it with ease! I, on the other hand,
being the flailing tele skier of the group, barely made
it down with all my ligaments still holding all my pieces
together.
After reaching the bottom we found our skin track from
the morning and followed it out, arriving back at camp just
as the last rays of sunlight were starting to fade. The
sun gave way to a spectacular moon which cast shadows on
the surrounding terrain all evening and lit up Mt Roosevelt
right outside our "kitchen window." We prepared
dinner and Pete lit off the remaining fireworks, a few of
which did not take off, while I struggled to keep a fire
limping along and managed to blow up our lighter when I
didn't notice it had slipped down next to the stove. Clearly
we are not the pyrotechnicians that Murray is. At 7:00 we
celebrated New Years in Greenland, and wandered off to bed
around 7:30.
Amazing how the weather can change during twelve hours
of sleep. We woke up at 7:30 to weak daylight filtered by
storm clouds and the sound of snow sprinkling our tents.
We ate breakfast and broke down camp in a hurry because
it was apparent worse weather was on the way. We hustled
out of there, pausing only for a few minutes while Becky
picked up the fireworks debris. By the time we left, big
fluffy flakes were falling. After a couple hours of traveling
and descending to Snow Lake, the snow gave way to freezing
rain and a stiff wind. We were getting coated with ice and
the ski conditions were getting worse as the rain softened
the wind crust.
Our final ski descent was on leg-breaker snow, like raw
cookie dough. We skied cautiously with our heavy packs and
made it down. We reached Plum around 1:00 coated with a
quarter inch of ice. A nice, dramatic ending to a great
weekend. With unfinished business left to tend to, we plan
to head back and try and knock off Pete's latest obsession
as soon as possible: the Preacher Couloir Project, or PCP!
Other Links:
Preacher Mtn Part
II: MLK Weekend
