Distance: 5.75 mi.
Elevation Gain: 2500 ft.
We decided to go on a two person ski tour in the Stevens Pass area, on a well-treed slope. This led us to Arrowhead Mountain. We got started at about 8:30 AM and had to skin along the railroad tracks for an hour or so. The tracks were fairly melted out in some places which made for some goofy skinning. We started southward up the slope at about 9:30 AM. The snow down low was thin and crusty. As we got higher the snow became softer, and then around noon it started snowing. The snow even closer to the ridge had 6 or more inches of fresh powder on top, which we didn’t expect. As a two-person crew we didn’t want to take any undue risks with avy danger, so we decided to ski down from about 5,000 feet. We had approximately two delightful turns in powder and then made our way back to the thin, crusty stuff. We did some survival skiing through the thick trees and made our way back to the railroad track, once again skinning along for almost an hour. When we returned to the car, Vanessa realized that her normally white skins were completely black from the railroad soot! We cleaned them about 5 times each with laundry detergent and then put a fresh layer of skin wax on, and they’ve continued working great for another year since the unfortunate incident.
(Download the free Gaia GPS app on your phone to view tracks and then get a Gaia GPS membership if you want offline access. Discount below!)
Gear Used:
- Avalanche beacon/shovel/probe
- Backcountry boots/skis/skins
- GPS
- Helmet
- Trekking poles
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