Well, life is busy and I’m behind on write-ups. But let us jump back to a beautiful spring
day in mid-April, for one of my best ski days of this season.
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| the classic view looking north from stuart peak |
I joined John and Justin for a Stuart Peak to Snowbowl
traverse, despite having done the same tour with Jeffrey a few weeks prior. However Jeffrey and I encountered horrible
breakable crust conditions on nearly all aspects and all elevations. It was so bad we cut it short across the
grant creek basin from atop mosquito peak, without even skiing a run down to
glacier lake. So I was excited to return
for better conditions and excited to share this outstanding tour with John and
Justin, who have both spend extensive time running through this terrain but
never on skis.
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| justin in the eagle chute |
We made good time up the ravine trail on foot before hitting
snow and transitioning to skis and continuing up to Stuart. On the summit, John wasn’t feeling well and
decided to head back down, but encouraged Justin and I to continue on
together. We reluctantly parted ways
before skiing great boot-top powder down the N side of stuart to upper twin
lake. The short climb to eagle point
ensued, before skiing again excellent powder down the eagle chute to mckinley
lake. (note- this was my third time in
the past 12 months (and second time in the past month) skiing the rattlesnake
traverse and boy did it feel good to finally hit it in great condition).
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| eagle chute |
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| adjacent run just E of the eagle chute. the cliff band at mid-height does not appear to fill in even on a big snow year |
We botched the route-finding a bit on where we chose to gain
the main ridge S of mosquito. However it worked, and we both breathed a big
sigh of relief as we got off the steep-ish E facing slope, sluffing warm storm
snow under the strong sun. We continued
up to the summit of Mosquito where we discussed our descent options down the N
side (at least 5). I voted for a
particular couloir that I had not yet skied and Justin was game, so we skied
down the NW ridge to the entrance, followed by nearly a thousand feet of
outstanding steep and deep couloir skiing down to glacier lake. Under the glaring sun, the ensuing climb up
the S ridge to sanders peak was a hot, sweaty grind but we were rewarded with
another excellent powdery descent of the N couloir to the bench above sanders
lake.
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| steep powder on the N side of mosquito |
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| apron below the N face of mosquito |
We strategically used the shade cast by the NW ridge to
climb to the saddle in relative comfort.
From here, we elected to skip murphy peak due to condition of its S
couloir on such a warm afternoon so we made a skins-on traverse to the W before
dropping into the grant creek basin. I
had promised Justin hours earlier that we would find access to running water
down in the basin but alas we did not (granted we didn’t look very hard but in
the past I’ve always readily encountered it while crossing the basin). Therefore the ensuing climb up point six was
a hot and thirsty one but we slowly grinded our way to the top. We opted for the S ridge to snowbowl over a
mega-slushy jenny bowl descent and then ripped down a fun, slushy paradise and
the standard 5 minute walk to the car.
All in all one of my best ski days of the year, with great weather,
great terrain, excellent snow and a fun new partner.
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| justin atop sanders with the N face of mosquito behind |
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| sander's N couloir |
Stats: about 20mi and 9k vertical in 11 hours car-car
Rose: finally nailing this classic tour in perfect powder
conditions
Thorn: hot, sweaty and thirsty climbs the latter part of the
day
Bud: a full stuart to mcleod traverse awaits
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