We'd kicked around the idea of going to St. Helens for a couple of weeks but the cycle of 1-2 inch snowfalls, followed by sun, repeat, repeat, repeat had been with us for over a week. Driving all that way for rotten snow and mank didn't really seem all that happening. So Matt and I agreed to go up the ridge below Wy'East as far as conditions would permit and then ski down into White River. We met early and deposited a shuttle car in the White River Sno-Park and then made our way up to the Meadows main lot.
Beautiful morning . . . the few clouds in the sky rapidly dissipated and there really wasn't even a breath of wind. The snow on the way up was a little disheartening: a quarter-inch breakable sun crust over unconsolidated powder . . . even at 6500 feet. We rapidly concluded that skiing into the lower elevations in the White River Canyon might not be that fun with a breakable crust underfoot. At worst, we'd see how things looked up higher and take advantage of 2000 feet of groomers in-area on the way back to Matt's truck.
| Early morning sun illuminating the Wy'East face. |
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We made quick work of the hike up through the area and made our way above the Cascade chair. Still absolutely no wind where we took a break at about 8-grand. Matter of fact, it was really the first time I can remember the volcano actually looking like, well, a volcano . . . the steam coming from the fumaroles in the crater was just sitting there forming a plume-cloud. Usually the wind's working hard enough up there that the steam disappears within a few yards of leaving the rock.
| Matt continues on up the ridge - White River Canyon to left |
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As we continued up we actually got into some powder snow. Hmmmmmm....! There was quite a bit of seasonal depth on the upper mountain - some of the terrain feature's trailing wind-rolls were larger than I'd seen before up there.. Even though it's been kind of a lean year below 7K, there has been lots of precip, all falling as snow above 7000 ft.
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Matt approaching from below - a giant rime ice feature in the
foreground.
There was zero air moving around in this big swale - felt like an oven! |
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As we got higher the snow started to glob-up a bit and the pitch steepened. The going from here up was going to be too steep to skin and too soft to walk. Besides, there was lots of loose-snow slide activity on the headwall above the Newton-Clark Glacier. Time to de-skin.
So there we sat at a little over 9300 feet, looking down on just short of 5000 vertical feet of skiing to the bottom of the Heather run-out . . . and powder to start playing in at this elevation, too! Not too bad for mid-late April. After another quick bite we got into the queue just below the base of the Wy'East face. I started making turns and resolved to keep turning until I reached a little rock feature at the base of the 1st pitch. About what felt like a thousand turns later I stopped, turned, and watched Matt make his way down. The snow was in ideal transition just a little wetter than powder, but made for some excellent skiing.
| First tracks laid down - Matt doing some spooning on his way down. |
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| Matt bearing down on his work. |
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| Checking the progress of another party on the ridge above. |
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Matt took honors on the 2nd pitch and quickly vanished over a roll. I didn't see him again for a LONG time & thought I must have been looking for him in the wrong spot or there was some sort of obstruction, when he suddenly re-appeared as a speck far below. The scale of the terrain up there is pretty stunning.
After making our way down a chute that we'd spotted, I angled along the ridge to a point above Accordion Bowl.
| Matt getting ready to jump into the chute. Tracks from pitches one and two visible behind. |
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| Matt in the chute on the way to the lower canyon. |
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| A look back at the first couple of pitches from the ridge above Accordion Bowl |
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Some explosive control work had already loosened up a pretty large wet slide that ran to the base of the bowl. I dropped into some of the trees skiers right but still managed to pull some heavy sluffs along with me -
From here we did some creative exit work back to the car . . . Matt was a hero and remembered to bring some "friends" along, as usual . . . obviously best enjoyed in bright sunshine while admiring the day's first set of tracks still plainly visible thousands of feet above from the base area lot.
| The route in full - from the bottom of the Heather Chair. You can still see the upper tracks if you hold your head right. |
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