7/8/02
Picked up Shawn at his "cabin" in Welches & we were on the road to the Barrett Spur TH by about 6AM - the original goal of the day. I'd tried to hit the Barrett Spur previous years using the Elk Cove trail and had always found the gate to the access road closed. Today was no different. Will have to try to reach it an alternative way in the future. Oh well. Easy enough to rally back a bit and hit the SnowDome which is what we did.
We made our way up the Cloud Cap road and arrived in the lot by about 7:30 . . . totally disrupting the peace and quiet for the people who had spent the night up there. I lost the rest of my cool points when I forgot to turn off the lights on the rig and got a couple of shrill chirps from the car alarm for everyone to enjoy. Epic. Still a bit of snow in patches in the campground at Cloud Cap but route-finding proved not a problem. Made our way over to and across the Eliot Creek, still entirely bridged by snow. Continued up the main climbing route - the lateral moraine of the Eliot Glacier - still beneath the cloud deck.
| Shawn scrambling thru the boulders on the Eliot Glacier moraine |
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| On the traverse to the top of the Langille Crags - about to bust thru the cloud layer. Lower Eliot Glacier icefall in the background |
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Stopped for a break at the saddle below the SnowDome just as we punched through the clouds - just below 8000 feet. We changed out of sneakers and into boots at this point & spent an inordinate amount of time enjoying the views. We had seen a single skier leaving Cloud Cap when we were preparing to go, but he had evidently headed in the direction of the Cooper Spur. We had the place entirely to ourselves.
| Taking in the views at the base of the Dome. Upper Eliot Glacier icefall to the left |
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There was some fresh snow from the weekend's weather event . . . a dusting that gradually increased to a few inches as we climbed higher. The snow had been pretty wrecked by the weather, though. A thin crust overlying a couple inches of rotten rain-hammered stuff underneath. Looked like the skiing would be a bit less than perfect.
| Shawn punching steps on the lower Dome. |
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Lots of cracks up high on the dome . . . more than I can remember seeing in the past. We skirted climbers left of these and up to the top of the Dome - at a rock outcrop about where the Sunshine route starts to traverse to climbers right.
| Giving the cracks - visible to the right - a wide berth |
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| The billowing cloud deck spent the day rising and falling thousands of feet every 30min or so (Shawn Reddy photo) |
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| Nearly there |
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The climbing on the way up had not been nearly as bad as I thought it would have been. Once again we spent a ton of time up high just enjoying the day - the sunshine, blue skies, clouds below, and scenery were spectacular. Would have been nice to finish off the summit via the Sunshine route but we hadn't brought any ice tools along.
| Shawn continues on under a fairly stunning backdrop |
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"You wanna supersize that?" Shawn prepares for the drop-in |
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First few turns above the upper Eliot Glacier were actually surprisingly good. We rotated around to skiers left above the Coe Glacier to have a look at the Barrett Spur and decided that the SnowDome 2nd option maybe should've been the first option all along. Mid-July is probably a bit too late for the Barrett.
| The traverse toward the Coe |
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The snow on this aspect of the Dome (more North-facing) had a bit heavier crust on top so we skiied back to and down a line on the more eastern aspect of the Dome. The turns were pretty soft but remarkably good.
| Some turns high on the Dome (Shawn Reddy photo) |
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| Catching a breather next to the upper icefall |
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| More turns as we approach the cloud layer |
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| Shawn rippin 'em at high speed above the Eliot.... |
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| ....and checking his work before handing it in for grading... The Cooper Spur visible in the background. |
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After a the first couple thousand of vertical we made the traverse over to the top of the Langille Glacier and skiied down the upper bowl to the pinch at the base.
| Skiing the upper Langille. Runnels becoming evident lower down near the pinch. |
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Had to do a short (10 foot) boot trudge here to get to the snow of the lower Langille bowl. The skiing was good on steeper sections here but as the angle decreased the runnels started to be a bigger factor. As in previous trips we were able to ski all the way down the lowest bowl to the end of the snow - right to the Timberline trail just below 6000 feet. About 4000 vertical feet of turns.
The Timberline trail was mostly clear with intermittent snow patches, so we reapplied our backcountry foot-travel tools (sneakers) and made our way back to the Cloud Cap parking lot on foot.