[TR] traverse: - Steven's Pass to Snoqualmie Pass (Gold Creek) 4/2/2007

[pinegar]

Trip: traverse: - Steven's Pass to Snoqualmie Pass (Gold Creek)

 

Date: 4/2/2007

 

Trip Report:

On Monday, April 2, 2007, on the heals of some cold, fresh snow, I set out from Seattle to traverse from Steven's Pass to Snoqualmie Pass, a trip I estimated would require three or four days. Riding Seattle Metro buses wearing my BC ski rig draws some attention, and on this occasion I declined to accept a rather heavy XXL wool/acrylic jacket offered to me by an injured railroad worker while I was riding to the Greyhound station. Later, after helping to free a young woman trapped in a bus bathroom by a defective lock, I arrived at Steven's Pass. During the ride I discovered that I had left my "Steven's Pass" 7.5' quadrangle at home, but fortunately some nice people at the ski patrol office printed out parts of the map for me from the internet. This was great, since I also obtained parts of the neighboring "Scenic" quadrangle, a map I've never bothered to buy.

 

 

So at about 1:30pm I started to skin up towards the back side of the Stevens Pass ski area. I continued south to Tunnel Creek. I took a picture of myself that turned out to not show anything else, and I reached Tunnel Creek at an elevation of 4070 feet at about 3:30pm. I continued past Hope Lake and stopped for the night at the saddle overlooking Trapper Creek which is due south of Hope Lake. Soft, pretty snow characterized these first days of the trip.

 

 

 

The photo below (taken early in the morning) shows the view SW across Trapper Creek, from near the saddle where I slept. The route I followed later that morning is along the valley shown climbing southward out of Trapper Creek leftward from the center of the photo. Trapper Creek was reached at 3540 feet at 8:50am, and was conveniently covered with snow.

 

 

Tuesday was a sunny day as expected, and the light, fresh snow was about 10 inches deep.

 

(Taken looking north during the ascent away from Trapper Creek.)

 

After a sunny noon-time lunch at 4550 feet that allowed some time to dry equipment, the saddle overlooking Prospect Creek (5620 feet) was reached at about 3:15, and the next photo shows the view SW towards Square Lake during the subsequent descending traverse in that direction. The burned trees and south-facing slope left the snow quite sun-exposed, and I chose to remove my skis to kick my way through a short, craggy section of the traverse.

 

 

The following photo shows Lake Wolverine, with Square Lake in the background:

 

 

I traversed Square Lake from north to south and continued south to the smaller lake before ascending the westward ridge, shown from below here:

 

 

I kept to photo-left. A quick evening descent into the Deception Lakes followed, and the night was spent among trees between the two largest lakes. I departed at about 6:50am, and two hours later Deception Creek was reached at 3370 feet. The crossing was made difficult by steep banks and overhanging snow, and it was necessary to remove my ski boots. This photo, taken from the south-west bank, shows the point where the crossing was made. I used an ice-axe to modify the snow bank so I could approach the water between the two smaller trees on the far bank.

 

 

Poor visibility for route-finding, combined with some steep areas...

 

 

slowed the ascent to Marmot lake, and this relatively large lake was crossed at 3:15pm.

 

Next is a south-facing view of the lake, overlooking some thin ice near its outlet:

 

 

The route southward follows the western bank of the stream from Jade Lake. As afternoon wore on, extremely sticky snow made the skis quite heavy, even though the climbing skins were removed since the sun-warmed snow and icy skis alone gave adequate traction. Jade Lake was reached at 6:00pm.

 

The next photo shows the view southward up the glacier-floored valley extending south from Jade Lake.

 

 

The next view is northward from the head of that valley, at the end of the third day of my trip.

 

 

Next are two overlapping, under-exposed photos from the top of the same little valley, showing the view of Mount Daniel and the Lynch Glacier from the north.

 

 

 

A breezy night was spent at the western corner of the lake at the foot of the Foss Glacier. As I was preparing for bed I foolishly put one boot through thin snow into the outflow stream, leading to a change of socks and a slight relocation of my intended bivy site. Here we see me early the next morning, with the camera looking northward at my bivy site there at the head of the Foss River.

 

 

Next is a view of Mount Hinman from the same bivouac site. The shoulder of Mount Daniel extends from photo-left, and the route I followed passes through the floor of the valley between Hinman and Daniel.

 

 

The following shots show the wide view looking south from the saddle between Daniel and Hinman. Shovel Lake is in the center and Bears Breast Mountain is largely obscured by cloud on the right. Several cliff-bands must be avoided during the descent westward towards Lake Rowena.

 

 

 

 

Lake Rowena and La Bohn Gap from some point along this descent:

 

 

Here is the west-facing view from La Bohn Gap. The Middle Fork Snoqualmie Valley extends to photo-right, while the ridge containing Summit Chief Mountain stands on the left. Just west of La Bohn Gap I saw the first skin tracks since I left the Stevens Pass ski area.

 

 

At 4:20pm I crossed the Middle Fork at 4130 feet, using a combination of snow bridges and fallen logs to cross the braided stream. At 5:20pm, at 4030 feet, I put skins back on and began climbing south into the valley of the Overcoat Glacier. There was a strong south wind in this valley, and I bivied at 5250 feet, in a simple, tubular snow cave I dug into the east-facing slope of the spur at the western side of the valley.

 

 

The next morning I was traveling by 6:30am, earlier than usual, and I ascended to the saddle at 6550, north-east of Overcoat Lake. Keeping this elevation, I traversed clockwise above Overcoat Lake, and then climbed several hundred feet to the top of the prominent saddle north of Iceberg Lake. As expected, the upper Burntboot Valley is quite a nice rock garden!

 

(I hope to go back there this summer. I need climbing partners,

:eveeel: :eveeel:,

and maybe a mule train to carry gasoline, a small keg, etc. )

 

This last piece of film was exposed at 11:00am Friday from this 6750-foot saddle west of Overcoat Peak. It shows Chimney Rock from the northwest. Note the rocks visible below the high saddle at photo-left. According to the topographic map, a 200-foot section of this obvious ski descent path (between Chimney Rock and Overcoat Peak) has an average slope of about 55 degrees. It presents an obvious variation to the route through this area. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable negotiating the gaps between the rocks during a true ski descent this season. Later views of this descent path from below also left the quality of that route variation an open question in my mind.

 

 

My route continued through the saddle just west of the Lemah Peaks, and I carelessly lost about 30 minutes when I trapped myself above a cliff-band while descending from there to around 5000 feet, where I then traversed over to the relatively flat-bottomed canyon about halfway between Avalanche Lake and Joe Lake. Here again I saw tracks: Apparently soon after the snowfall of Sunday/Monday, two skiers had descended the slope I now climbed on my way into the Gold Creek watershed.

 

After traveling to the shoulder of Huckleberry mountain overlooking Joe Lake, I met a south-facing slope warmed to slush by the afternoon sun. On my first full traverse across this slope, my sluff triggered the wet-snow avalanche shown in the cell phone picture :moondance:. As I watched this avalanche run (into the trees well below where I later stood to take the photo), I was a little surprised to see a smaller slope (about 1/4 the area, to skier's left) remote-trigger and also run . Unfortunately it is not visible in the photo, being beyond the trees to photo-right.

 

 

Following my original plan to descent the NW bank of Gold Creek, things went smoothly that evening, and I camped just after crossing Silver Creek (walking on a log). After a lazy but hungry start (I had eaten my last food the night before), I continued down the bank of Gold Creek as the forest thickened and the snow became harder and more uneven. I skied without skins as much as possible, and walked a little in some patches. Clearings in the forest and ancient cross country ski tracks and kick wax residue lured me toward Gold Creek, until I found that a swamp north of Mardee Lake separating me from my car. In the epic conclusion, it took me several hours to travel northward across the swamp on a network of more or less connected snow-bridges (final cell phone pic), and I reached my car at about 3:00pm, approximately 5x24 hours after I started skiing.

 

 

The last day made me feel more like a knight of Arthurian legend than a back country skier, but other than that I had a lot of fun on this trip. Although I did run out of food, I was eating well until the last day, and I always had plenty of gasoline. Although I still believe this trip should be accomplished in three days, four or five days is more consistent with my level of experience and physical fitness. Apparently I did just enough skiing this season to avoid over-use injuries on the trip.

 

I'd like to thank Matt for loaning me his ski poles, and I'd also like to thank the weather for being better than expected during the second half of the trip.

 

Gear Notes:

Tele skis, no crampons.

[Dan_Miller]

Good Work David! Way to get after it.

[dt_3pin]

Well done!!!

Edited April 12, 2007 by dt_3pin

[kurthicks]

that looks like a great trip. Summit Chief is looking good too

[DirtyHarry]

Noce job going at it solo. Too bad Summit Chief is all climbed out, though.

[olyclimber]

Great TR!

[ivan]

nothing beats boredom like adventure

[dmarch]

Wow!

Impressive solo adventure.

Thanks for the report!

[fettster]

Looks like a blast! Nice job. How tough was the snow cave digging?

[pup_on_the_mountain]

Awesome first post !!

 

Looks like a fun trip. Thanks for sharing.

[SmilingWhiteKnuckles]

Wow! Great report. That's an awesome trek, man! Way to get after it. Especially with the public transport thrown in there...unheard of!

[pete_a]

great TR!....nice work getting way out there solo!

[dbb]

Noce job going at it solo. Too bad Summit Chief is all climbed out, though.

 

who are you, Fred Beckey or somethin?

 

summit chief does look good. in fact, alpine chicken looks better than the FA conditions.

 

nice solo trip. that must have been fun to cross such remote terrain alone in "winter"

[ZimZam]

That is very impressive. Awesome trip report.

 

The scenery itself is stoke enough. Damn that's purdy.

[Lowell_Skoog]

This last piece of film was exposed at 11:00am Friday from this 6750-foot saddle west of Overcoat Peak. It shows Chimney Rock from the northwest. Note the rocks visible below the high saddle at photo-left. According to the topographic map, a 200-foot section of this obvious ski descent path (between Chimney Rock and Overcoat Peak) has an average slope of about 55 degrees. It presents an obvious variation to the route through this area. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable negotiating the gaps between the rocks during a true ski descent this season. Later views of this descent path from below also left the quality of that route variation an open question in my mind.

 

That's where the Snoqualmie Haute Route goes. It's a reasonable ski descent with decent snow conditions. It's also possible to climb it on skins.

 

Glad you had a safe trip.

[pinegar]

Thanks for all the positive feedback and comments! I really did have a blast on this trip, and I'd been looking forward to it for months. It gave me a feeling of accomplishment that I don't get too often.

 

Where I dug the quick little "snow cave" wind shelter-tube the snow was quite deep and dig-able, though it was steep and the wind was always trying to take things away from me. I wasn't really digging into a wind slab but it was definitely a lee slope for west winds and the snow was nice and "cornified".

[spicoli11]

Good things.....nice work!!

[Weekend_Climberz]

F'n A!!! Nice jorb :tup:

 

Love the pics :tup:

[AlpineK]

Maybe not full on bad ass, but a really nice trip.

 

I've thought about going from Stevens to SNQ many times.

[LhotseDreems]

Awesome! .. great shots and great TR Enjoyed reading about it. I've been looking to do this for sometime. But, I couldn't find a partner.

 

Who needs a partner when you can do it solo?

 

Right on!