Gaston Posted April 12, 2009 Posted April 12, 2009 (edited) Trip: Boston Basin - Sahale Ski Tour Date: 4/8/2009 Trip Report: On April 8th I skiied into Boston Basin with JT. We were hoping to do the Forbidden tour, but knew that the weather might not cooperate. The road is gated at mile 20, the Eldorado Cr. trailhead. A quarter mile further we crossed the creek where a new bridge is going in, and then put on skis. The road is uneventful, except for the HUGE wads of debris from the early January rain event. We also found some black bear tracks. The ascent route described in Volken's book is super straightforward: you follow the Boston Basin road for a few switchbacks, then keep skiing up the slide path and timber in that first drainage. The snow from 2000-6000 feet was pretty gross, with 20-30 cm of isothermal glop topped by a crust from the cooling trend. We couldn't be too excited about the ski out, unless a very strong crust developed pretty damn fast. Up above treeline things improved some. Colder snow, but still an intermittent crust. We skiied onto and across the Quien Sabe glacier, aiming straight for Sharkfin col during a break in the mostly white day. The gully looked dirty and thinly snowed. It was. We scrambled up to the col and had a look. You could see the North Ridge crossing, just under the thickening clouds. Damn. We pulled the plug, given the bad forecast and the nasty snow. Too bad--the Boston looked fairly filled in, and you could almost ski down the north side of the col. We camped near the base of the gully. Temps hung around 0 C all night. In the morning we reconfirmed our choice to stay on the west side, looking at the dark clouds swarming out of the west. We skiied up Sahale in a whiteout, booting along the very corniced ridge for the last hundred meters. A little boulder move had us on top. Yay! The ski down offered everything you expect from whiteout glacier skiing. All I can add is that the snow wasn't THAT bad on the way down. Skiable, barely. In the alder and cedar swaths near the trailhead, we ski cut some growling wet slabs: WS-AS-R2-D2x2. One of them took out several switchbacks on the previous day's skin track...we were glad we had come through when it was cooler. The NE face of Jberg looks badass--runnel city. A couple of big, fat, blue iceflows can be found below C-J col right now. Gloppy skating back to the car. Good Food offered unusually vibrant tomatos and lettuce on their "deluxe burger." Hope that's useful to someone. Edited April 12, 2009 by Gaston Quote
DirtyHarry Posted April 13, 2009 Posted April 13, 2009 Good to hear you can that far up C River Road, Quote
goatboy Posted April 14, 2009 Posted April 14, 2009 If you spent half the time skiing or climbing that you've clearly spent on your steroidal vocabulary, or your eloquent (even multi-lingual) ability to coax phrases out of nonsense.... You'd probably be even greater than you are. Mammies sometime? Quote
AlpineK Posted April 15, 2009 Posted April 15, 2009 Good to hear you can that far up C River Road, Yeah, Thanks Quote
Littlewing26 Posted April 17, 2009 Posted April 17, 2009 nice work senor! i second GB's request for mammies sometime! so does mr. kelly. Quote
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