[TR] Mt. Shuksan Nooksack Cirque - Nooksack Ski Traverse 4/6/2012

[JoshK]

Trip: Mt. Shuksan Nooksack Cirque - Nooksack Ski Traverse

 

Date: 4/6/2012

 

Trip Report:

For the disinterested, picture hungry, or ADD afflicted, feel free to skip to the pictures at the bottom.

 

I haven't bothered to write a TR in a loooong, long time, mostly because I'm too lazy and never want to figure out the picture uploading thingamajigger either. That, and the presence of Facebook in our lives, for good or worse, has made it incredibly easy to just select some pictures, click ok and be done with it, thus recording in time immortal what we did with our past weekend when we weren't returning phone calls and emails. Thankfully, sometime during the past however-long-it-has-been, a feature was added that lets you just click pictures in your gallery and spam images in to a TR. Thanks for that!

 

Anyway, every so often a trip comes along that begs me to write at least a few words and record its passage in internet lore for future generations. So it is with an an open eye and heart to those future generations that I fumble together these words and press this "Submit" button.

 

The Winter of 2011-2012 has certainly been one of superlatives in the PNW. While the rest of the lower-48 has apparently suffered through a pitiful snow season, the great state of Washington has been blessed with one for the record books. Aside from a brief dry spell back in January, if I recall, it has been non-stop storms dumping copious amounts of very good quality snow. I don't remember a ski season that featured so few, and such short-lived, of the dreaded pinnaple express warm-ups. When the snow level did jump up this winter it was usually only very briefly. We weren't forced to endure those several day stretches with 6-7000 foot snow levels and constant rain. I, for one, was very happy about this. With the constant barrage of snow, I enjoyed a winter with lots of powder skiing, trips to lookouts, snowcave building and just generally bearing witness to the fury of Winter in the PNW.

 

Of course, the one downside to all of this snow is, of course, the lack of sunshine. I was desperate for it. While I had enjoyed a sunny day or two during the winter, they were mostly those bittery cold and windy days where the sun feels as if it's putting off the heat of a 60-watt light bulb. It sure is damn pretty out, but it doesn't generally invite you to sit in a tee-shirt and enjoy the view. As the calender turned over in to April I was eager for the start of Spring touring season, at which point my entire world begins to revolve around the question of "where is the best place for me to sit in a tee-shirt and enjoy the view?" Last week the weather forecast finally began to show signs of a weather window. It was time to leave the comfort of the lookouts and strike out in to the alpine, though thankfully, as it turned out, we didn't have to leave the powder skiing behind. I had several days off and began to scout for ideas and partners. Pat, newly converted to the cult of Dynafit, was game for three days.

 

Enter the Nooksack traverse. I had seen photos and read accounts from when Sky, Jason, Lowell and crew skied it years ago and had filed it in the back of my mind as a must do traverse. Having been up Ruth quite a few times, I had often stared across the valley at magnificent Jagged Ridge. I called Pat over to my house so we could discuss options. While we chatted, I noticed Jason had logged on FB messenger, so I siphoned additional beta and stoke to complete the "sales pitch" of the traverse to Pat. He was sold. I didn't even have to throw in floor mats or leather seats.

 

Pat and I met at the Hannegan Pass turn-off from Highway 542 late Thursday night after our respective drives up from Seattle. We finalized a few gear decisions before heading to sleep. In the morning we drove up to the ski area lower parking lot. Here we met two helpful parking attends and explained that we planned on leaving a car and heading out Ruth Creek. They told us that the lower lot is locked after closing so if we wanted to guarantee we wouldn't be locked in, we'd have to leave it at the upper lot. To the upper lot we went, and as a bonus we got to ski a short run on the groomers with huge packs to start the day. This would prove to be the best skiing of the day, as the descent in to the White Salmon drainage was pretty much terrible. Heavy, crusty glop that wouldn't normally be much of a problem made for a bit of a workout with the big packs.

 

The skin up the White Salmon was pleasant enough, with occasional snow flurries throughout the few hours it took. As I crested the ridge of the White Salmon where Fisher Chimneys tops out the clouds had descended and began to engulf me. I found some exposed rocks and huddled and melted snow while I waited and the visibility dropped to less than 30 feet. When Pat arrived we put skis on our back for the short wallow up Winnie's Slide. Thankfully this would be the only time we were off skis until 1/2 a mile from the bottom car. We skinned along the Upper Curtis Glacier and up through the wind lip of Hells Highway on to the Sulphide Glacier in a near total whiteout, hoping that the forecasted clearing was still in the works. We made camp at the divide between the Sulphide and Crystal glaciers as we couldn't see a way through the cornice separating the two in the whiteout. Depending on conditions, the BD Firstlight tent can either be a weight-saving miracle or a disaster. At 8,000 feet in the Cascades on the night of April 6, 2012, it was closer to a disaster; the BD Faillight, if you will. Condensation formed and froze to the inside of the tent instantly and the slightest movement would unleash it upon us. We were living in a green, foul-smelling snow globe and the wind played the role of a young child constantly shaking our little world. An incredible full moon rising behind the cornice and occasional breaks in the weather kept our spirits high despite the sad state of our immediate physical surroundings.

 

Thankfully, the next morning dawned beautiful and sunny, with only the occasional clouds obscuring the peaks surrounding us. I had fully planned on going up the summit pyramid, but the experience of the previous night's tent microclimate instead put us to work drying out gear so we could continue on the traverse. We watched a party of three traverse from the north shoulder over to the summit pyramid as we exploded our gear everywhere to dry it. With gear dry and bodies warmed we worked over to the East Nooksack Glacier headwall. At first it looked as if an overhanging cornice ran the entire length of the headwall. With the amount of snow this year and it only being early April, it wouldn't have surprised me. Thankfully a few moments of scouting around led me to a small section that was steep, but not overhung, and wouldn't require any downclimbing. A few turns down the headwall and over the large but well bridged 'schrund led on to the East Nooksack Glacier proper. Snow on the headwall and the glacier was excellent; nice settled powder that had little sun effect.

 

The long downhill traverse along the upper shelf of the East Nooksack is breathtaking. Jagged Ridge towers above you the entire time, advocating that you keep moving lest he lose his patience and chuck something down in your general direction. Several large serac fields have to be navigated, but thankfully passage was easy enough at this time of year. In order to minimize the time spent under the watchful eye of Jagged Ridge we kept on a downward track as far out as possible, eventually switching to skins at 4800 feet. It seemed a few extra hundred feet of uphill skinning was a worthwhile price to pay for quick and safe passage. The skin up to Icy Peak is quite straightforward and the bright sunshine and light breeze kept the temperatures perfect. I was finally getting to enjoy my tee-shirt weather, now I just had to find some place to sit.

 

With the weather forecasted to deteriorate we wanted to make it past both Icy Peak and Ruth Mountain. Thankfully the snow was incredibly cooperative in this regard. Skinning up the powder was consolidated enough to make for relatively easy trailbreaking, and the skiing down was fantastic and easy, even with large packs. We made our way up and around Icy Peak down the Spillway Glacier and towards Ruth. We put skins back on and climbed through some well covered cliff bands on the southwest side of Ruth made our way up a notch about 300 feet below Ruth's summit. Pat, in an effort to maximize sun-chilling time skied down from here. I continued the last few hundred feet to Ruth's summit to snap a few more photos and check the forecast. I enjoyed the familiar and enjoyable ski down Ruth in the late afternoon sun to find Pat on the shoulder relaxing in a snow chair. I dug a chair and enjoyed the sun before it passed below Nooksack Ridge. With no need to hurry we watched the sun set and the stars come out before finally digging a small platform for the tent. Only 24 hours later and a few thousand feet lower the Firstlight performed wonderfully and made me love it again. It's a finicky tent for sure. We slept in late with only the grind out Ruth Creek and the road remaining for the next day.

 

Ruth Creek is very well filled in and it was pretty easy going on skis all of the way to the road. The scale of the avalanche destruction in this valley is a sight to behold. Massive fans cover the valley from both sides in several places and the bigger ones look to be 100+ feet deep in places. The upper stretch of the road is also covered by several large avalanche paths, so I imagine it will be some time before it melts out all the way to the trailhead. At least one swath dumped lots of debris and trees over the road as well. When I reached the bridge a few hundred yards before the parking lot, Shuksan was bathed in late afternoon light, rising above the river. I took a few final photos of this truly magnificent mountain we are lucky to live near.

 

At the parking lot I recognized a familiar truck with skis, boots and pack sitting outside of it. I called out "Hey, Dan! You in there?" and sure, enough, the man himself emerged. Dan offered me a beer, a very welcome treat, and I described the tour, showed him some photos and we discussed all matters Shuksan. Ending a grand Shuksan ski tour with a chance encounter with Mr. Shuksan himself was a great way to top off the trip. It's been a great Winter, and here is to hoping for an equally great Spring, with plenty more tee-shirt lounging days ahead.

 

Enough with the words, here are the pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

Gear Notes:

Standard ski touring gear, axe, crampons (didn't use), ski crampons (did use once), camera, alpine boombox, recreational stuff.

 

Use BD Firstlight for weather inside of your tent as unpredictable as the weather outisde!

 

Approach Notes:

White Salmon Creek is very filled in right now.

[wayne]

 

looks like a fun time!

 

 

hell of a place to tour.

[Ldawson]

Cool, looks like fun! I'd love to do that traverse sometime. I think we were the three you saw heading up to the summit pyramid, beautiful day up there!

[layton]

Nice! Thanks for the PNW porn...almost forgot what snow looks like

[ivan]

fucking board-head bitches

[mattp]

Nice TR and nice photos. Thanks.

 

I'm interested in your "synopsis" of a winter where you suggest we never had the long stable period and few of the pineapple express events than normal. I don't question this: that certainly conforms with my weather observations as I did not get out skiing all winter. I'm interested, though, in that I didn't notice any reports of new big winter climbs this year. Did I miss something? Might it have been a bad year for winter climbing but a better one for skiing?

 

 

[JoshK]

Matt, that is an interesting observation. I wonder if to some extent it has to do with skiing and winter climbing competing for the same free time in people's schedules? In an "average" winter (whatever that means now) there will be stretches where the skiing is relatively poor, so one might look for a climbing objective instead? I know for me, personally, I will generally choose skiing over winter climbing unless the conditions are poor or somebody asks me to climb specifically. In the case of this past winter, pretty much every time I was free to go do something, the ski conditions were looking good. Add on to that the lack of long stable weather periods and the fact that I can have a lot of fun skiing in a storm, but it's pretty hard to climb at all in a storm. Wayne and I touched on this when we were out a few weeks ago: we had both observed a similar trend this winter with a lack of extend "bad skiing" periods. So while I can't say it was a bad year for winter climbing, I do think it lacked long weather windows and the fact that it was a stellar ski season made it easy to choose that alternative.

[mattp]

In a crude sort of way I'd say that, in general, good winter alpine climbing conditions are nearly the opposite of what we generally consider good skiing. For good climbing we want no new snow and preferably it has recently rained or melted above the level where we are climbing but it is now cold (read: crust, breakable crust, or just plain boilerplate are good). For good skiing, we want new snow (though maybe not too much), and also we want there to have been no recent, or at least not recent enough to encounter beneath the new snow, a crust left from a warm weather event.

 

To some extent the climber/skier who is ready to climb when there is not new snow and who is ready to ski when there is new snow will have better winters. And, of course, the rock climber has to hope for a few days here and there or fly to Mexico.

[jordansahls]

Rad.

[tvashtarkatena]

More bro + avi pron featuring the better looking ski model Edited April 10, 2012 by tvashtarkatena

[Whatcomboy]

Good slide show.

[danhelmstadter]

nice tr! it was great to see you guys & provide well deserved beer!

[wayne]

sick shots Pat.

[olyclimber]

Thanks for the TR..both of you. Nice pics.

 

[Pete_H]

Very Nice!

[123tom]

Awesome shots love the tent, moon and light!

 

[KaiLarson]

Very nice.!!!

[dougd]

Nice to see you out enjoying life Pat.

 

Outstanding TR, and as always pics.

 

d