Illumination Saddle 12/6/00
Arrive at Timberline lot at 7am. A little colder up there than I would have anticipated, but not below freezing.
| Up a gully leading to the top of the Magic Mile lift. |
|
A big temp inversion that has been going on for the last 2 weeks or so continues. Big sun to the east and a huge cloud sea below. Snow is pretty hard . . . no cloud blanket overnight to hold the warmth on the hill. We really take our time on the way up 'cause we know that the Easy Bake Oven in the sky needs to do its work. At around the 8K level the pitch gets steeper and the skins start having difficulty holding on . . . the snow surface is still kinda hard but slowly softening and getting a bit of melt/H20 on top making things slick.
| Clouds below - Matt trudges up the glaze up the Zigzag glacier. Mt. Jefferson and the Three Sisters in the far background. Timberline parking lot just above Matt's right shoulder. |
|
The approach to the Saddle at Illumination Rock is sort of more east facing so things are really corning up nicely when we arrive there.
| Illumination Rock looms above - Illumination Saddle upper right. |
|
We top out at Illumination Saddle at around 11am or so - about 3500 vertical feet above the Timberline lot. A leisurely pace interrupted with frequent conversation and scenery.
| Matt arrives at the Saddle after taking a wild million-mile-an-hour ride down this bench with skins still applied |
|
We take an extended picnic there to give everything some more time to soften up. There's still a visible glaze/sheen on the snow lower down so we give more time - besides, its beautiful up there . . .
| Matt adjusting his lid. |
|
The view from the very top of the saddle is of the Zigzag glacier and Timberline way below to the South, . . . the Leuthold Couloir and the Reid Glacier icefall to the West.
Awesome.
| Putting a bead on the Leuthold Couloir for later reference. |
|
| The Reid Glacier headwall. |
|
| The Reid Glacier icefall below - Mt St Helens at upper right. |
|
| Burnin' up some Kodachrome |
|
At 1130 we start to get ready for the poke. We traverse from the saddle to below the face of Illumination rock to make things a little more interesting.
| On the traverse to the base of the rock. |
|
The initial pitch off the base of the rock is pretty steep. . . and as I make my way over to the drop-in the snow is considerably softer . . . softer than I would have thought. Matt tucks in behind in the queue at the top.
| Old tracks dropping in. Big crevasse visible mid-photo. Mt. Jefferson in the distance. |
|
I drop in . . . make one solid turn then totally glomm in the soft mash on this steep pitch . . . The pitch is SE facing and has been getting baked all morning. I should have known given the size of the wagon wheels I was kicking off before I dropped in. Oh well. Anyway . . . I get it together and make about 20 turns to get off this steep pitch and stop above a big crevasse a little lower down. Matt naturally executes perfect turns down the pitch on his tele gear with no issues whatsoever. ... We make our way to the right around the big crevasse - turns out to be a real beauty when we got a better look into it. Still sort of steep here and I throw down about 30 nice corn snow sweeper turns and I feel like I'm back on track . . . .
The Zigzag Glacier is an excellent continuous fall line, but at about 7500 ft we break off of it and start making our way back toward the ski area terrain at Timberline
| Matt prepares to take a knee - by now way below where we kicked in - Illumination Rock and saddle visible just to his right. |
|
- Turns out we're a little too late/low as we have to negotiate a few steep gullies to get back over to the ski area. Like solving a puzzle!
We proceed to enjoy the remainder of the descent from
the top of the Mile back to the lodge in super nice corn snow
conditions.