We wanted to ski New Year's Day through the weekend. However, high avalanche danger, which included closed passes made planning difficult. Sort of at the last minute we decided to base ourselves out of a motel in Cle Elum to ski out of Salmon Le Sac and Blewett Pass.
Since the avy danger was high on the west side of the Cascades we reasoned that a shallower snow pack on the east side coupled with skiing low angle terrain in the trees would keep us safe.
Randy had mountain biked across the drainage from Jolly Mountain the previous summer and thought that it would make a good ski tour. Plus Blewett Pass is nearby — we've always enjoyed skiing there.
After consulting guidebooks and maps, plugging info into the GPS, packing, we checked the pass conditions early on New Year's Day. Stevens was open… until we got all the way to Monroe. Pout!
Plans were delayed by one day. We didn't get an early start on Friday because we weren't entirely confident that the passes would stay open. We moseyed to Seattle, goofed around. Snoqualmie was still open so off we went.
The next morning we drove the road up to Salmon Le Sac. It hadn't been plowed recently and snow was accumulating as we drove. We were in my Toyota 4-wheel drive, which turned out to be necessary for the clearance. As we got closer to the parking area, the snow was actually shallower. Huh. In the parking lot there were lots of big trucks with trailers pulling snowmobiles.
We started up the road to Jolly Mountain. No snowmobiles so I broke trail through a breakable crust to the second switchback. We left the road there; Randy lead the way up the ridge. The going was very slow because the tight trees forced our route, plus the snow wasn't particularly easy to travel through. We switched off breaking trail about every 30 minutes. We finally reached the end of the road. After a couple false starts we decided the best way to get to the top of the clearcut was to cut a track through the clearcut. Randy made kickturns about every 10m until we finally got to the top. It was time to turn around. We had reached approximately 5050' in elevation — about 1000' below our goal. Daylight is in short supply so we thought we might come back the next day since most of the track was set.
We found a low angle slope down the clearcut. Randy went first and found a windcrust. Turning was difficult but the clearcut was fun. Then we got to the trees. The wider trees were kinda fun to ski through. Then came the tight trees. And an exercise in frustration for me. For the next hour I skied and fell, skied and fell because places to stop were limited and stopping was difficult in the crust. By the time we got down to our road track I was both furious and relieved. Randy suggested that we might not ski there tomorrow. Good man! We got out just as light was failing for real.
The next morning we got an earlier start to tour Diamond Head at Blewett Pass. I was dragging a little because of all the falling the day before. Fortunately the snow was easier and we were able to follow a snowshoe track much of the way. We made it to a lovely slope below the summit. Near the summit was a little corniced, wind-loaded. So we stayed at the elevation we popped out at and dug a pit: 91cm snow, ENE aspect, 32 degrees, CT 23, crust at 15cm then deeper crust, which apparently I didn't record. Oops.
We decided to ski close to the trees, one at a time, taking turns to keep an eye on each other. After the first few turns it felt like the snow was going to stay put so Randy skied the entire slope then I did too. The snow was much more skiable than what we experienced on the way up to Jolly. We slogged out; round trip was around 4 hours. Returned to a ticket for failing to have a snowpark pass. Let that be a lesson to all of you! Here are the pictures.