[TR] Heather and Maple Passes - 11/6/2011

[Jason4]

Trip: Heather and Maple Passes -

 

Date: 11/6/2011

 

Trip Report:

To finish my weekend off I went out with a friend from SAC who wanted to ski Maple and Heather passes. He was out there a few weeks ago and said he wished he had his skis for the snow fields. I was a bit skeptical after my Friday trip to Heliotrope but I wanted to get out in the mountains and the weather was nice.

 

We started out from the parking lot towards Heather Pass on skins but I was moving slow on my splitboard and the snow wasn't very deep. I quickly found a good way to carry my board in the pack and was making better time than Don was on his skis. We found a few exposed water ice crossings (at least a meter in length!) and quickly made our way to the top of the first pass. Somebody else had already skinned the entire way and once we got out on the open traverse above Lake Ann we could see tracks high on the ridge.

 

We stopped for lunch around 130 near Heather Pass and enjoyed a quiet meal and shared a beer. Unfortunately the other beer fell victim to a hazardous ski crampon.

 

After lunch we followed the skin tracks up to Maple pass on took a few turns on the south face and found rocks. On the way back up I learned how to deal with a stiff wind pack on my split board and it wasn't graceful. Once back at the pass we dropped down into the shade and found about 10 amazing turns without a single rock until we tried to traverse around the bowl that we were in to get back to the trail. We gave up on the traverse to the right when the talus field inflicted too much damage on my board and instead went left and back towards the trail on the ridgeline.

 

Don chose to ski down some more of the trail which was more adventurous than I felt ready for (for the sake of my board). When the snow got too variable for skis we both ended up booting about 3 miles back to the car to arrive after dark at about 530.

 

The suffer factor varied from "shoulder season" to a high of "awesome" and a low of "Trent" but it was a good day overall.

 

We only saw 6 other people the entire day while we were out there which was a refreshing change from the previous two days.

 

I learned a very important lesson: check the bases of your partners skis to get an idea of their tolerance for low snow conditions...

 

Pictures to come after work.

 

Gear Notes:

Splitboard and snowboard boots.

 

Approach Notes:

Boots and skins

[Jason4]

I'm not an ice climber but I did notice a lot of ice forming above Rainy Lake that would be worth exploring if the weather breaks again before the highway is closed.

Edited November 7, 2011 by Jason4

[dougd]

Unfortunately the other beer fell victim to a hazardous ski crampon.

 

Damn sad that...

 

sigh...

 

d

[JasonG]

Just because Trent is over in Afghanistan doesn't mean you can use his name in vain! I'm sure he can serve up some extra pain upon his return.

[Jason4]

Since I'm not finding enough patience to embed pictures here's a link to Flickr instead:

Flickr