jordansahls Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 (edited) Trip: Enchantments ski tour - snow creek to rat creek Date: 12/31/2010 Trip Report: It was with the promise of a glorious forecast that Brian and I headed out on New years eve with the hopes of spending three days touring through the Enchantments. [if you have no interest in harrowing tales of manliness skip to the bottom for pics] We spent the first night at Snow lake, which was very very cold. The temp down in Leavenworth was around 0 degrees F, which means it was around -15 to -20 F at the lake. Thank god we brought a fifth of Wild Turkey 101. We spent the many hours of darkness drinking and playing a rather interesting and long game of "would you rather" (I will just say this, Olsen twins or Williams sister). The next day we got up and started things out by snapping a pole on Brian's tent. We managed to repair the break with a little bit of elbow grease and a lot of foul language. The repair job ate up a fair amount of our already limited daylight. after talking it over, Brian and I decided that our best option was to hit Prusik pass, ski across towards Edward's mesa, and ski out rat creek. It seemed more favorable than spending another night in sub zero temps. The climb out of snow lake took a little bit of creative navigation, but was fairly uneventful. It was nice to be moving in the sun. The only unpleasant part was trying to battle dehydration. We were in the situation where our only means of getting water was to melt it, but we could not store any in our water bottle because it would freeze in our packs within 15 minutes. We skied down Prusik pass and stopped at Shield lake to brew up. We spent 45 minutes melting and drinking as much pine needle infested water as was humanly possible, you would think we were battling scurvy. It sure helped with my headache and cotton mouth. Feeling better, we packed up and started moving towards mesa lake. Everything went smooth up until the point at which we started our decent down the rat creek drainage. Holy shit. I have no words to describe how heinous and truly horrifying the next 7 hours were. Trying to ski down rat bastard creek is like purposely dropping the soap in the penitentiary shower, over and over again. We basically fell our way down every single foot of the over 5000 feet of the drainage. It was truly the worst descent I have ever had the misfortune of making. The original plan was to ski out hook creek (Brian and I had made the approach to climb the Mole in the summer via hook creek). We only skipped on hook creek because it was dark when we got to the base of the mesa and we were too lazy to climb up. Big mistake. After raging and cursing at every deity known to man we finally made it down to the bridge and icicle road. We were both dizzy with dehydration, It was 11:30pm at this point. Brian and I still had to walk/skin the 2 miles of road back to the car at the snow creek trail head. Our feet were absolutely mangled, so we removed our ski boot shells, dropped our packs and ran the road in our inserts. The drive back was painful. We managed to get some liquid in us at the rest stop on our way back towards the west side in the form of sprite and coke. Even with the awful shenanigans, the trip was good. A few main lessons were learned, one being bring a bigger stove to melt water (we had a packet rocket, which got the job done but not in any sort of timely fashion). Pics (all by Brian): snow creek wall Nada lake Snow Lake, looking towards Enchantments almost to Prusik pass Looking at Little Annapurna At Prusik pass west ridge of Prusik Shield lake back towards Prusik pass The descent down rat creek Approach Notes: Snow creek trail Edited January 4, 2011 by jordansahls Quote
stevetimetravlr Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 Classic! I feel your pain, laughing my ass off with you guys, that descent was such a bitch. You could have taken the straight shot up Temple Canyon into Mesa and Earle Lakes, or did you just want to visit the Enchants in vinter? Quote
jordansahls Posted January 4, 2011 Author Posted January 4, 2011 We considered it, but the snow was unconsolidated and the slabs up temple canyon were icy and looked less than inviting. But your right, we mostly wanted to make the trip into more of a tour. Quote
BCross Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 Yeah that sounds pretty accurate... However I think I may have been responsible for cursing the majority of the deities; I think I even told Zeus to F* off after I kicked that tree to get the ice off my boot and just about got buried by the snow the proceeded to fall off the tree branches above me. I am pretty certain the occasional hits of Wild Turkey and Macallan Fine Oak were what got me through. Quote
wdietsch Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 Trying to ski down rat bastard creek is like purposely dropping the soap in the penitentiary shower, over and over again. Quote
mattp Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 It seems to me that skiing out of the Enchantments is usually a bitch. I've skied Mountaineers Creek in good snow, once, but I've skied a frozen climbers trail several times. I have not skied Rat Creek, but I've skied out via Toketie, in rotten pack sugar snow, and I've skied out via Snow Creek in breakable crust. Any time you are headed for a trailhead at 1500' in Washington (or, as in Mountaineers Creek a very popular climbers' trailhead) you are likely to run into trouble. Try Cannon Mountain, and you may just run into a ski run. Quote
jordansahls Posted January 4, 2011 Author Posted January 4, 2011 The original plan was to hit a few of the peaks, but that didn't happen. However, I think you could get some good turns in coming down hook creek, which is mostly open. At least you would get to ski down a few thousand feet unmolested before entering the shrub shenanigans. Quote
Tyson.g Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 I vote this the best TR of the New Years weekend! Great photos Brian and way to suffer through gents! Quote
mountainsloth Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 nothing quite like falling down a mountain side in skis right? Did that once this year and hope to avoid that mistake for the rest. Thanks for the laughs and good story. Quote
kevino Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 You guys are true men. My friend and I were up there yesterday, it was 4 degrees with a below 0 windchill...at 11 am. Miserable. Quote
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