N Cascade River Road

[dave schultz]

Wondering if anyone has any information about what the Cascade River Road might be like? Is it drivable, if so, how far? Looking at trying to get into the Eldorado or Boston Basin areas.

[JasonG]

This time of year the online reports are often outdated. Best bet is to give the ranger station a call in Marblemount if you can't track any recent TRs down on TAY or here.

[tvashtarkatena]

I called the ranger, but he was on leave for a week and just got back to me. He's got the following info now:

 

Last weekend we drove to the Sibley Ck (HLP) turnoff in an Outback, which had barely enough clearance. Otherwise, its the plowed parking lot near the Monogram/Lookout TH for yeez. There has probably been some further melt, but the rutted snow's pretty consolidated and isn't compacting very quickly.

 

Snow up high was beautiful. Shirtless temps and blue bird skies didn't hurt too much, either.

 

The more folks call in with road reports, the more updated the NCNP road conditions report will be. Road patrols this time of year are few and far between.

 

 

[timmy_t]

I was just up there last week. There were some cars parked at Mineral Park campground (@ MP 15) where the snow started in earnest, but we made tracks down the dip and continued another 2.5 miles to where it was pretty much continuous. We had to briefly dig out the 4Runner three times but it was pretty easy. So you can probably drive a little ways past MP 17 now. After that there's a brief spot with no snow, and then it's continuous for the rest of the way up. We took a snowmobile so we had one brief spot of road riding. It looks like it's gonna be awhile before the road is clear to the Eldo TH. The gate at the Eldo TH (MP 20) is easy to take a sled around, but the next one is about half-buried so you'd have to go over it, or dig a ways down. The guys who climbed/skied Spider (see the recent trip report) were able to take a sled all the way to Cascade Pass.

 

We had taken a chainsaw but the Spider guys beat us to it, so other than a bit of tree debris that you can drive over the road is in really good shape. We did the Forbidden Tour, so we skinned up into Boston Basin and came out the trail down from Eldorado. Let me know if you need beta on any of this area; I'm going to post a TR in a few minutes.

Edited April 5, 2013 by timmy_t