Big St Joe to Lolo Peak ski traverse

With good stability and perfect high pressure conditions, I was fortunate to join forces with Brian for a go at the bass creek to lolo peak ski traverse.  Brian had done it two years previously but bypassed the major peaks so our hope was to hit the major highpoints and ski some new runs along the way. 

N face of big st joe

We dropped a vehicle at the mill creek TH and continued down to the bass creek TH, finding it full of cars when we pulled in at about 3:50am.  As we were gearing up and about to depart, 10+ folks with headlamps came down the trail, carrying a litter.  Fortunately it was just training for the local Search and Rescue but we were sure surprised by the early (or late night?) hour of their training.  After exchanging a few words with them, we started up the trail in shoes, running the flats and hiking the steeper sections of trail.  We opted to keep our feet dry by taking the summer trail on the N side of the creek and made good time up to pinball meadow and the bottom of big st. joe’s SE bowl as the sun was rising.  After a quick break and water top-off, we started up the climber’s R side of the drainage, reaching snowline in about a thousand vert.  With a strong overnight freeze, we opted to keep hiking a ways before transitioning to boots/skis and continuing up to big st. joe’s summit. 

exiting big st. joe's SE bowl

big st. joe (photo: brian)

Next up was skiing the moderate and often wind-hammered N face, a run neither of us had skied.  We picked our way through some rocks and skied some windboard before reaching decent powder conditions midway down, followed later by horrendous breakable crust (I crashed twice on my 74mm underfoot skis) as we skied 3000ft down to sweeney creek (S fork).  We transitioned at the creek before starting the big climb up the aesthetic S gully of the E pyramid butte, skinning the apron and lower portion, booting through the debris and bed surface where it had naturally slid and skinning the upper stretch.  I had done a pyramid butte to sweeney loop a few years ago in summer so I was excited to visit for my first time on skis.  From the top, we skied the E face and were pleasantly surprised to find great powder skiing down to the N fork of sweeney creek.  

a look back at big st. joe 

looking N to sweeney lake with lolo peak in the distance 

E pyramid butte powder

cold N facing powder above sweeney creek

We continued N to saddle 8776 and fortunately the climb wasn’t nearly as hot as I feared, given the strong sun and warming temps.  From there we skied more mellow powder N to one horse lake where we found a nice shady nook to eat and transition. We then made the typical climb to the N past reed lake to the N summit of lolo peak, still moving at a good clip despite already having 10k under our legs. 

next stop one horse lake.  lolo peak in the distance (photo: brian)

E face of E pyramid butte

more powder on N lolo peak

although we were the only folks out there, I still like to stack our tracks
and leave an aesthetic mark on the mountain (photo: brian)

The theme of the tour seemed to be warm but not too warm S aspect climbs and good powder skiing down N aspects and the N gully of lolo peak delivered the goods, perhaps the best skiing of the day.  From lantern lake, we skied another 500 or so feet to the N before making a short final climb up onto lantern ridge, ripping skins and cruising NW in hunt of the summer trail.  We stumbled across it surprisingly quick and skied down til we ran out of snow.  We then transitioned back to running shoes and ran the bulk of the 4miles and 3000ft down to the car, periodically interrupted by downfall across the trail.  All in all an excellent day out in the mountains.

a few miles of this at the end of the day (photo: brian)

the route

Stats:  approx. 23mi/12k vert in just over 12 hours car-car

Splits: approx. big st. joe 4 hrs, E pyramid butte 6 hrs, N lolo peak 9:30, mill creek TH 12 hrs

Rose: moving through the mountains fluidly and easily with a strong partner, gorgeous weather and (mostly) great skiing

Thorn: dehydrated and tired on the run down the trail at the end of the day

Bud: despite the current heat wave, hopefully getting in a few more great ski tours before the snow is gone 

Thoughts: although it is fairly long, this is an outstanding tour that is highly recommended to strong backcountry skiers, the car shuttle is surprisingly quick (just under an hour from town to deposit a rig at mill creek TH and get to bass creek TH), a similar outing in the summer could be fun – start with the 3 joe traverse, then from stormy joe trend N on the ridge all the way to lolo peak, dropping off once or twice as needed for water, and again ending at the mill creek TH)