[TR] Mt. Stuart - Cascadian Couloir Ski 5/6/2007

[samc]

Trip: Mt. Stuart - Cascadian Couloir Ski

 

Date: 5/6/2007

 

Trip Report:

Last week, I was sitting inside generally driving myself out of my gourd, day dreaming about being back in the hills. I have this wierd set-up where I only have work/class on Tuesday through Thursday each week, but still have a number of responsabilities. What happens is I come to Tuesaday totally unprepared, squeak through the week, and am busily packing or preparing for another trip by Thurday night. Sounds nice except for the mental health part where I can't think of anything but snow, rock and ice while I try to write a grant for my internship. It's not called an obsession for nothing.

 

Anyway, I really wanted to go ski Stuart. I was up that way in the middle of April with Mike, Jason and Justin to go for the SGC, but had to come down because of considerable new snow loading above 7500. My friend Nick Webb and I had been consipring to ski Ulrichs after seeing Jason Hummel's TR from earlier in April. After wading through a week of angsty madness, I called Nick and we made a plan to hike in on Saturday and ski on Sunday. I was relieved. Fiinally I had a plan. I was going to ski. The madness appeared to receed.

 

Saturday, we rallied at a relaxed hour, and another friend, James, decided to come along too. We drove off to find the Beverly Creek trailhead. The North Fork Teanaway road was melted out past the split to Stafford Creek Rd. FS 9703, but we were stoped a couple of miles short of the Beverly Creek turn-off by a snowy bend in the road that is usually the last spot to melt out. This is where all the other cars were parked, so we saddled up our packs, and headed out around noon.

 

We hiked about three road miles to the trail head, where we ditched approach shoes/my chacos, and doned our "tools of ignorance" (i.e. ski-boots). From there we booted for another mile, past Bean Creek, and only then were able to start skinning. From there, we continued up Beverly Creek and over the pass to Turnpike Creek. Once we got to the pass, we were treated to views of Stuart in all its glory.

 

Then we snuck off for a few turns, before traversing high on the east flank of the valley to maintian elevation:

 

We were a bit uncertain of how to get into Ulrich's since it is hidden from the Turnpike Creek side, but we decided that we would ski the route we climbed, so that if we wanted to ski Ulrich's (which we did) then we should climb that way to check it out.

 

After a short slog across Turnpike and Ingals Creek, we came to some slide alder at the base of the skiers right alternate version of the cascadian, just below the summer trail.

We continued to the base of the Cascadian and found a spot to bivy for the night. We rose around 4am after a resonable mild night and started off.

 

A view of Ingals in the morning light:

 

I hadn't really checked to carefully about how to get into Ulrich's, and Nick thought we should head up one of the gullies to the West of the Cascadian, and then cross over higher up. This turned out not to be correct, but we didn't figure this out until quite a bit latter.

 

At around 7500 ft. the gully we were heading up started to pinch down into a narrow slot couloir, and though it continued in view for another thousand feet, it grew quite a bit steeper with some small icey/rocky steps. This was not skiing terrain, and we should have known that the route was clearly somewhere else, but unfortunately we decided to venture up that 1000 extra feet before thinking to carefully about it. After reaching the end of the visible couloir, the slot just got even steeper and the snow disappered. We were, in fact, surrounded by 20 ft rock walls on three sides. Off route, and a little dismayed, we downclimbed the couloir to where it opened again. At this point, since we didn't really have a clue where we were headed, James decided that he needed to save some energy for the slog back over the pass, and since we could practically still see camp back down the 3000 ft. couloir we were in, he headed down.

 

A bit disapointed but not content with giving up, I explored over to the West and came to a vantage where I could see Ulrich's. Unfortunately, there were definately some tricky cliffbands to negotiate that way, and it was getting a little late for that kind of adventure. I came back to where Nick was, reported my findings, and we decided that didn't make sense at the late hour of 8am! But Nick didn't want to just head down either, and decided that someone should look over the east shoulder by climbing a snowy headwall on our right. He headed up and finally reached the top of the ridge. He was to far away to hear anything, but he started gestering wildly, swinging his arms over his head. It turns out he was giving me the tumbs up, as he explained later, but with his ski poles in his hands, it just looked like he was making fists. Eventually I figured it out, and come up that way too.

 

Eureka! We had found a little side chute that linked the Cascadian with our gully, and from there we could see the upper headwall, shrouded heavily in morning cloud. We headed across and met another party who we ran into the evening before and who had plans for the Cascadian. At this point I talked with Nick, and he decided that he couldn't leave James, since he had invited him on the trip, and he decided to rejoin him at camp. He said that it was okay with him if I kept on going, and we set up an arangement. It was now 9:40 am. I would keep going while they returned to the truck, but I would turn around before 12:15, and if I wasn't back to the truck by 6, they should start to worry. Nick headed off for an improving ski down, and I started up. The other part was having a snack, but I asked them what altitude we were at, and they said just shy of 8k. I figured it couldn't take too long.

 

Of course, this is what the view up hill looked like in one of the clearer moments:

 

So for another hour, I cramponed up this bizare whiteout slope, using faintly seen rocks as guides to keep me in the right place. I even tried a new technique. On a break, I took a look a a photo of Stuart on my camera to help me figure out how far along I was. Suprisingly, it worked pretty well. The snow on the upper headwall was a little icy, but it seemed like to would hold an edge, I just kept hoping it would get clearer by the time I was set to ski back down.

 

All of a sudden, out of the mists, I could make out the false summit. I stepped up the final steep pitch, and reached the crest. I pondered whether or not to continue to the true summit, and decided to give it a go. It was only 11am, and as the visability slowly improved, and I was able to make out the peak in the distance. I decided to try for it. After carefully making my way across the steep headwall of Ulrich's, I reached to summit.

 

Here is the cheese-grin to prove it:

 

From there, it was on with the skis and into some turns. The upper headwall was pretty damn firm and every turn unleashed a "sluff" of little ice pebbles, but it held an edge. After decending 500 ft, and enduirng one more moment of total whiteout nasea, the sun came out to stay and the lower headwall and boulder field yielded perfect corn. It was time to drop the knee and let 'em run! I was able to ski all the way back down to camp (thanks to a little alder hopping in the patchy lower section) and skinined out from there. The slog up to the pass back into Beverly drainage was absolutely exaughsting, and I reached the pass shivering and shaking, nearly having bonked. Rested in the sun, shoved every last bit of food in my mouth and settleed in for the slog out. Around 4:30, I found Nick and James at the truck, enjoying beer and snacks, litesning to tunes where they had only been waiting for an hour or so. We stopped for burgers in Cle Elum, and saw the other party of skier there, who ended up skiing down from where we saw them earlier.

 

A parting shot of Stuart taken from the pass:

 

Gear Notes:

Skis, axe, crampons.

 

Approach Notes:

Aproached via Beverly Creek to Turnpike. About 3 miles on the road and another 1 mile before snow.

[AlpineK]

It looks like some fun skiing.

[Dan_Miller]

Good work! Perseverance wins out.

[AllYouCanEat]

I'm glad my TR inspired you to head out and ski ulrich's. That's a great ski!!!