TR: Hurry Up and Ski

[Lowell_Skoog]

Andreas Schmidt, my brother Carl and I skied Pelton Peak and Hurry Up Peak in the North Cascades on Wednesday and Thursday this week. We took the direct route from the Cascade Pass parking lot to the pass (not the trail). This required some brush grabbing for a few hundred feet at the basin headwall, but allowed us to ski most of the way from our car to the pass. We skied into Pelton Basin and skinned up the Yawning glacier to Pelton-Magic col. We carried our skis up Pelton Peak then skied the NW gully. Pelton offered a great view of the north side of Hurry Up, which was our main objective.

 

From the Pelton-Magic col we skied down to Trapper Lake and bivied there. The next morning we climbed the 'S' Glacier to the summit of Hurry Up. The sun hits this face early. It had good softening snow when we started our descent around 9:30 a.m. We were prepared to belay the descent with ropes and pickets, but the snow was good enough for us to ski unroped, carefully. Three thousand feet lower we gathered up our overnight gear and then climbed and circled around the east flank of Pelton Peak back to Pelton Basin. From Cascade Pass we followed the direct route back to the parking lot. Thus we were able to ski from the summit of Hurry Up to our car with only a few hundred yards of walking. Pretty good for mid-July!

[plexus]

Lowell, did you happen to take a look at Gunsight Notch by any chance? Thanks for the info.

[Lowell_Skoog]

No, I don't recall looking at Gunsight notch. You can't see it from Pelton Basin. I don't know of any access problems there. I've been there in July and it doesn't get a bad moat or anything that I recall.