Snowfield Peak Beta?

[skifast]

I am interested in doing some skiing around snowfield peak and havent been able to find much info from standard sources (Beckey book, classic climbs etc.) am wondering if anybody knows about the south aspect couloirs especially.

[Alpine_Tom]

FWIW, it's in Peggy Goldman's book, called something like "climbing Washington's Highest Mountains" I don't recall her discussing skiing, though.

[klenke]

Long way in there. Weather this weekend will suck for that kind of stuff.

 

Try here for some info (nothing relevant to skiing).

[Lowell_Skoog]

I am interested in doing some skiing around snowfield peak and havent been able to find much info from standard sources (Beckey book, classic climbs etc.) am wondering if anybody knows about the south aspect couloirs especially.

 

South aspect couloirs? On Snowfield Peak? I'm not aware of any such couloirs.

 

Snowfield Peak is best approached from near Diablo Dam via the Pyramid Lake trail, the NE shoulder of Pyramid Peak, and a traverse of the upper Colonial Creek cirque to the Colonial Glacier. See p. 63 of Rainer Burgdorfer's "100 ski and snowboard routes" for a more complete route description.

[Snafflehunter]

Or you could do what I did and approach it via an old climber's path that parallells Colonial Creek. You can pretty much stay entirely in a dried-up water course from where you first emerge from the forest to avoid dense slide alder - depending on time of year of course. From the base of the waterfall in Colonial Basin ascend directly to climber's right through cliffbands eventually contouring towards the Colonial Glacier moraine. I'd say the two approaches (Pyramid Lake and Colonial Basin) are about even, but the Colonial Basin approach offers plenty of chances to get into some brush if your routefinding isn't up to snuff (especially on the way down).

 

As for skiing, I haven't ever heard of any S. facing couloirs on Snowfield either. Looking at the map it looks steep on that South side (as steep if not steeper than the North side), but I'm not a hardcore skier, so what do I know.

[MisterMo]

Or you could do what I did and approach it via an old climber's path that parallells Colonial Creek. You can pretty much stay entirely in a dried-up water course from where you first emerge from the forest to avoid dense slide alder - depending on time of year of course. From the base of the waterfall in Colonial Basin ascend directly to climber's right through cliffbands eventually contouring towards the Colonial Glacier moraine. I'd say the two approaches (Pyramid Lake and Colonial Basin) are about even, but the Colonial Basin approach offers plenty of chances to get into some brush if your routefinding isn't up to snuff (especially on the way down).

Interesting... I can't speak to both as I've only been up via Pyramid Lake but until your post I never heard anyone sanything even remotely nice about Colonial Creek.