| The route up to the Spur begins at 4000 feet at the Tilly Jane ski trail trailhead. Terminus is at the top of the "pyramid" just short of 8500 feet at tie-in rock. |
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| In January of 1999, Jon Carney flew in from Gunnison, CO and from the airport at PDX and we straight to the Cooper Spur Sno-Park. He and I started climbing the Tilly Jane ski trail in steady cold rain at about 4pm which turned over to heavy snow by the time we reached 5000 feet. We dried out and spent the night in the cabin at Tilly Jane and awoke the next morning to 10 inches of fresh to play in. We climbed up to about the level of the old stone hut on the spur before the wind and blowing snow turned us around, but we had some FINE untracked powder turns above the treeline and then down through the trees back to the cabin. Then skied the Tilly Jane trail in deep untouched powder all the way back to the truck. |
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| There is a memorial etched in a rock at about the 8500 foot level for a tragedy that befell a Japanese climbing party on July 17th, 1910. There are some Japanese characters etched in at the left; the name at the bottom appears to read "S. Takahashi." This climbing route is notorious for climbing accidents. The upper pitch is very steep, exposed, gets baked by the sun all morning, and has a fall line that carries away from the route and onto the Eliot Glacier headwall. |
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| Tad Hiruki and I descended the route in May of 1999 on a beautiful day. We watched a guy ski the spur from the summit before we took off down the hill. What we didn't realize was that he was a climbing ranger responding to a fall of a husband and wife team descending the upper route. Unfortunately they did not survive and were recovered just below the headwall. It was believed that their crampons had balled-up in the mid-morning sun exposed snow. The accident happened about 2 1/2 hours before Tad and I reached Tie-In Rock . . . . . . |
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| Matt and I did an early season jaunt in December of 1999 and hit some neat little powder stashes on the way down before hitting the trees. Was a little too early (and boney) for the tree skiing to be in shape. |
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| Matt and Sally Kavanagh fueling up for a Spur descent June 5th, 2000. Mt Adams in the distance. We drove the Cloud Cap Road to about 4500 feet before being halted by snow, then climbed the 'Old Wagon Road' to Cloud Cap then up the spur. Tragically yet another climber fell to her death on the route the NEXT day, either due to a cornice failure on the summit or a sudden gust of wind up there. |
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| Hammin'. The Eliot Glacier icefall and the Snowdome in the background. The skiing this day was on incredible velvet corn snow. We ran the gauntlet a bit lower down when we missed the Wagon Rd on our return and had to hack and slash part of the way back to the rig! |
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