[TR] Union Peak- Descent of the NW face 1/25/2004

[AlpineK]

Climb: Union Peak-Descent of the NW face

 

Date of Climb: 1/25/2004

 

Trip Report:

This season Cman and I seem to be on a roll. We’ve been out in the bc 3 times this year and each time we end up slogging a lot more than skiing. This Sunday was no exception though we did get some skiing in.

 

We decided to ski up Union Peak just east of Stevens Pass. Cman showed up at my place about 6:30, and we headed out. On the way to the start of the ski we ran into Ken4ord and Dave Schuldt who were getting ready to ski Arrowhead peak. At our trailhead we found that someone had broken trail for us! We cruised up the road and ran into a group of what looked like 20 first time winter campers. Some of them looked a little surly from spending their first night out in the cold, so we kept going. At the first hairpin we ran into a couple guys who had been breaking the trail and passed them. Eventually we made it to the ridge above Rainy Pass where we were treated to a nice view of the south side of Jove Peak.

 

 

 

At the summit of Union we took off our skins and started our descent. We should have looked at the map and stayed more to the right but where’s the adventure in that? Anyway we ran into a couple cliff zones that we had to avoid, and eventually we skied down to the flats. From there we skinned up. Instead of following the route description we skied up to a flat bench on the ridge coming down from Union Peak and had a nice ski through the trees till the slope flattened out again. From here we skinned up to Union Gap and skied back down to the road and then out to the car.

 

Overall I would say that this was an interesting tour involving some interesting route finding, but we didn’t think any of the slopes were worth going back to ski again despite the nice powder on them.

 

 

Gear Notes:

Skis and boots, shovel and transciever

 

Approach Notes:

There's a well broken trail on the road right now, but there are places where we were breaking through 2' of powder. Avy conditions were low to moderate. There was a layer of ice from the previous warm spell

[Dave_Schuldt]

Jove peak is a great ski too.

[Eerie]

Are either of Union or Jove the peak on the north side of US2 just east of Skyline Ridge? I've been looking at and dreaming of riding down that peak for several years now.

[ken4ord]

Sounds like a good little tour. Dave and I had an awesome day over on Arrowhead. If I would have had a headlamp there would have been no dragging me out of there. We still managed to get three runs on the backside of the mountain and a descent back to the car. AlpineK we'll have to get out sometime for some bc.

[Dave_Schuldt]

They are off the Smith Brook road, north of Lictenburg. From Skyline ridge they would be northeast.

[Eerie]

thanks Dave.

[mattp]

Eerie, I think you have probably been looking at Lichtenburg. It is that big open mountainside you see on the left, just past the Yodelin ski lodge. That big south slope that you see from the highway can be an excellent powder run sometimes, but you want a good snowpack to fill in all the little trees and for much of the winter, most of the open shots on that side of the mountain have pretty nasty avalanche debris in them.