[TR] Shuksan Circumnav - White Salmon 5/1/2009

[alpenho]

Trip: Shuksan Circumnav - White Salmon

 

Date: 5/1/2009

 

Trip Report:

We had some incredible weather on day one (Friday 5/1) and for the first half of day 2. We started from the White Salmon Lodge at about 4am under clear skies. The skiing sucked to put it mildly. Wind and sun baked crust or mush, not much in between. From Mt. Baker Ski area the descending traverse to the bottom of White Salmon cirque is on its last legs - gullies are getting steep and deep, and not in a good way. Lots of huge frozen avy debris filling the bottom of the cirque, and we kept ski crampons on the whole time we climbed. Some sections necessitated boot packing, notably at the toe of the White Salmon and the transition from White Salmon to Upper Curtis. Hells Highway was skin-able the whole way. Summit Gully was filled in all the way to the top, and we managed to ski descend it from a side entrance about 30 ft from the summit. Camped on the edge of the Crystal, right where the easterly winds were the strongest. Fortunately the breakdown of the high pressure ridge happened as forecast and it was dead still from the middle of the night through the next day. We crossed the Crystal, checked out the Nooksack Glacier, then headed over to the upper Hanging Glacier for a very chattery icy traverse over to the Upper Curtis where the snow became barely perceptibly softer. The skies were growing ominous and we decided to get the hell out of dodge. It was at this point that we encounted some "firm corn" and definitely the best skiing of the trip. As we approached the bottom of the White Salmon glacier, we stupidly decided that it would be cool to do a high traverse over to the Shuksan Arm and ski along the top of the ridge, coming out at the top of the ski area. The non-fun aspects of this decision are shamefully too numerous for me to describe.

All in all, it was a great weekend adventure outing despite the snow conditions, and a cool tour of some amazing high alpine glaciated terrain.

 

Summit Pyramid from our camp at the Sulphide/Crystal divide:

On the final section approaching the summit. Our ski entrance is to the lookers left of that guy in the photo:

Ski descent down the summit gully:

Camp at sunset:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIcOceGjPn4

 

Approach Notes:

We saw a huge icefall avalanche come off the Hanging Glacier when we were high on the White Salmon, right about the time the sun just started hitting the upper mountain. Start early...

Edited May 5, 2009 by alpenho