Pyramid NW Cirque - ski descent

[Kameron]

4/3/2025 with @lunger (who came up with the idea... some kind of Pyramid Scheme) and Eric Noll

After a morning spent walking in steep forest and surmounting knobs of vertical snow on the ridge, we finally snow that was friendly for ski touring. A descending traverse West got us into a prominent slanting tube feature that descends from the shoulder of Pyramid. On this, we noted some shallow but sensitive windslab from recent E winds. Hopefully these wouldn't be found higher up on our intended line.

 

Cascade climber

Colonial

We skinned upwards, peeked around the corner into the NW cirque, and saw imposing blue ice. 

To our surprise, a strip of snow pasted on a narrow ramp seemed to provide a weakness through otherwise unskiable terrain. The windslab had also gone away, winds slowed by the large buttress of Pyramid's North face. As we climbed, our excitement grew and we realized we would be able to keep the skis on and travel through this wild feature. The upper bowl even held deep powder (and tiring booting).

Gaining the summit was a straightforward affair from the top of the cirque. The ridge is pretty low-angle. We chilled for a while at the ridgetop before moving to the summit.

Wehrly likes it spicy

Summit!

The descent made for a neat line in a beautiful position in great conditions. Nowhere was it crazy steep, but we did feel the exposure especially as we made turns directly above the waterfall and sideslipped the ramp. With snow to 2000' this would make for a 5k descent! We had to make do with a turn-around near 4600', followed by an ascending traverse back to ridgetop and a multi-hour descent through the forest.

Starting into the crux:

Wehrly opens up the narrowest passage. "SO EXPOSED!" I heard him shout

Noll followed:

I went last:

We sideslipped the ramp:

Happy below the gnar!

Avy debris, then some nice buttery pow

Looking back towards the cirque with our skintrack from the morning blown in

 

This was second attempt for me and Wehrly. We had tried in 2021 but turned around below the cirque when I didn't have a good feeling about the cornices. You are really going up the middle of a big avy path with a lot of overhead hazard. That day we skinned back up to the shoulder of Pyramid and did a long descent down the lower avalanche path. We stayed skier's left and had to negotiate a very steep section through smaller cliffs to reach the flat runout of the avy paths below. That year we skied to around 2000' among large alders and old growth. In retrospect, it might have been a good day for getting the complete descent.

March 2021, typical travel on the climber's trail:

March 2021, in the lower slide path:

If you haven't enjoyed the Pyramid climber's trail in winter conditions, crucial beta is to pass the steep sections by traversing climber's right/West through trees on the ascent. This saves a lot of effort! We didn't have them, but it might be wise to carry a couple ice screws and a v-thread for this line in case you find icier conditions or are approaching it top-down, e.g. as the exit from the Isolation traverse. There are some options for variations. Also, it sounds like Erin Smart, Kurt Hicks, and Forest McBrian skied this cirque but likely traversed far skier's left to avoid the icy crux we skied (this looked passable to us but also thin and exposed) https://turns-all-year.com/trip-reports/march-23-25-isolation-traverse-plus.

Skurlock photo with the line:

[JasonG]

I was wanting to see this report!  Thanks for putting it up and wow, what a cool trip.