The Gift of Discovery
Everywhere else in the Washington Cascades was dry. Overcast skies, minimal amounts of precipitation. Little did we know, or expect, that our trip deep into the backcountry of the central Washington Cascades was experiencing near blizzard conditions. Not that this was necessarily a bad thing. Washington State isn’t doing very well with snow right now. Sure there were some huge storms in December, but January was very quiet. And recently, fluctuating temps have wreaked even more havoc on the snowpack. So needless to say our expectations for this ski tour were pretty low; hopefully uncover some powder stashes on some north facing slopes, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary was anticipated. Were we mistaken…
With snowmobiles loaded, we departed the Salmon La Sac pit area (about 13 miles out of Roslyn, the town where Northern Exposure was filmed) before the throng of other sled-necks (all w/out skis thankfully.) About 30 minutes later and 3000 ft higher, we were amazed to find 6+ inches of fresh powder, up to a foot in some places. Ok, where did this come from??!?!?
Skins on, snow falling lightly, off we went…
Winter ski traverse - central Washington Cascades
As we continued to climb, the snowpack varied from deep powder in the trees to dust on crust near the alpine. For our second lap we managed to ski (via braille) a great little couloir, with strong winds blowing any and all snow directly into our faces. Once down at the bottom of a large alpine bowl that faded in and out between sucker holes (spots of blue sky that never amount to anything) and sideways-driven snow, we realized it was time to make a decision. The easy (and safe) route would have been to simply ski back out the way we had come. Instead we decided to head up and over a nearby ridge, uncovering an admirable-looking couloir that was just begging to be skied. Not this day unfortunately, but the anticipation remained. And the fact of the matter was, we had just discovered a very worthy ski line (and massive alpine bowl for that matter) that we had no would offer up such potential.
It kept snowing…
…and despite feeling like crap I knew we would be back for this. It’s not often, as a backcountry skier, you discover something like this, something that may actually have never been skied before.
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Award-winning adventure photographer Ian Mackie moved to the Pacific Northwest 10 years ago, leaving behind the suburbs of Massachusetts in search of higher mountains, desolate trails and deeper snow.
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