Mount Aix surroundings - May 31, 2004
I met a guy from K2 at the trailhead who had been up there overnight, and he revealed to me some top-secret snowboard-related plans they have (hmm interesting...)
He also told me there was less than 1 inch of new snow up high. I said maybe that was good because then I wouldn't be boarding slop. He also said it froze hard last night and was very firm, but hopefully the sun would come out. The forecast was for "mostly sunny with chance of showers near the crest" on the east slopes. Mt. Aix is pretty far east.
I hiked up the dry trail to around 5200ft where it nears the stream bed. I figured, if I was lucky, there would still be snow in the valley bottom - and it would be continuous the rest of the way up. I was lucky.
I skinned up the open basin above, going very very slowly because I was waiting for the clouds to burn off. They are going to burn off, right?
I took many breaks on the way up. The forecast for my ascent was "mostly slowly". As I got higher I entered the cloud deck more completely, and there wasn't much to see.
Eventually, somehow I ended up on top of the 7500ft peak west of Mt. Aix, despite moving really slowly to wait for the sun to burn things off. But I still couldn't see much, except there was a huge cornice about a hundred feet away.
I was suprised that it was almost a quarter to two.
Well, this area sure didn't get much snow from the weather systems of the past week. Instead, it looked like there had been some pretty intense fogging going on. Trees and rock were covered with up to 6 inches of rime ice.
While I sat next to a lone rime-covered tree munching on blueberry bagels and dill Havarti, the clouds finally cleared out well. The nearby cornice was only a few feet high. Lo, I had been fooled!!
The sun didn't last very long and I figured it would be good to go down now rather risk more whiteout.
I hiked down 80 feet of rime-covered rocks and clipped in.
The snow was actually pretty decent... dry, smooth and fast - just like....
A thousand feet lower, the "less than 1 inch of new" made the boarding slow and sticky. Oh well.
At the end of the snow, I took a break while a sucker hole appeared above me. The ridgelines were now enshrouded in clouds again. An hour later I was back at the truck. Crossing over Chinook Pass, it was a good steady rain, with wet snow right at the summit.