A walk in the Park

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kamtron

A walk in the Park

Post by kamtron »

Hey everybody,

I'm just getting to meet the krew of rad skiers in Seattle. I moved from VT last September. Out in the East Coast we only ski icy moguls and claustrophobic trees, day in, day out.

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(Brent Harrewyn vid & photo)
Nice to meet you all. The cascades have certainly blown my mind. Here's a recount of a day trip Hannah C, Ben K, and I took to the ski the Boulder-Park and headwall on Baker last Monday.

I started out from Seattle at 1:15 am to meet Ben in Everett. We left the trailhead at about 4:30. Unfortunately, I lagged behind Ben and ended up missing the meadow, made an epic bushwack to the ridge (too early), realized my mistake but didn't want to backtrack through the steep suncups and alder. So I waited on the ridge and was lucky that Ben and Hannah pushed on and eventually found me. Sorry, guys :oops: There's something to be said for keeping the team together....

There were good views on the ridge, though:
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Hannah skipped the lower Boulder ridge and moved quickly through the lower Boulder glacier (recommended), meeting Ben and I at some rocks after gaining the ridge, around 8 am:
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Despite this setback of about an hour, and thanks to some superb pacing and track setting, we made good time for the rest of the day. We made our way up the cleaver and onto the upper glacier to our goal, the Park headwall.
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We passed over the 'schrund where it was most filled in, at the south edge of the headwall. Then, it was exciting booting and cramponing to the top. The snow was a thin glassy crust over consolidated powder when we started up the wall, so we didn't put on crampons. Hannah started to second-guess that decision about halfway up as the "pow" layer got thinner and the really consolidated old snow underneath made climbing sketchy. So we transitioned to crampons mid-slope. I was happy to be in the back and making the transition on a slightly more moderate slope! Made a comfy ledge with my axe and no problem. The climb was straightforward with crampons, and loads of fun.

Then it was summit time! We arrived around 2:15 pm. Huge stoke, big rolling cumulus all around but somehow not touching Baker's summit, basically zero wind and balmy temps made us a happy trio. We caught a glimpse of one other person, a skier on the far side of Sherman crater checking out the steam vents. I'm in the funny aymara hat.
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The snow on the headwall was certainly skiable.
Ben drops in first, taking the line between rocks on the face immediately below the summit (setting himself up for a mandatory crevasse-hop exit):
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Hannah and I skied near where we climbed up. Hannah drops in:
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The face skied great. You could certainly feel the crust---some railroad track effect---but it broke apart easily and made fun sloughs that it was necessary to manage. We think we dropped in at a good time, because it had been able soften all day but was in the shade soon after our descent.

Hannah rips a turn down to me:
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The best snow for skiing was the next section. Then it started to get gloppy, then REALLY sloppy, deep enough that my tips were diving. The glacier became a brilliant white as the sun's angle in the sky dipped.
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We skied as far as we could, had to remove them for a dirt section near the waterfall, put them back on and managed to ski a little past the meadow.

What a great day! Blisters are near-healed now, so what's next?

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skykilo
olikyks
from Santa Fe
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Re: A walk in the Park

Post by skykilo »

That was one of my favorite routes, so much quality fall line. Good to see a picture of Ben. Nice VISOR too.

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huevón
are we there yet?
from el mundo
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Re: A walk in the Park

Post by huevón »

I'm gonna start calling this the Sjue Route but only because I didn't know there was a that side of the mowten before you raved about it

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