Mount Aix surroundings - May 31, 2004


...never been there before. The drive over Chinook Pass to the trailhead took just over two and a half hours. It was snowing lightly at the pass, with a little slush on the road - and very very foggy.

The trail goes up that slope. This was the visibility for most of the day.

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.

Y, it's some cool little chutes... maybe if I had skis. Although the snow looks weird in there.

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?

View of the Bumping Lake resevoir from the ridgetop.

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!!

This was as sunny as it got. Is it mostly?

Little tree encased
By the evil rime of death.
Hoping it melts soon.

The sun didn't last very long and I figured it would be good to go down now rather risk more whiteout.

Time to go down - before it becomes even less mostly sunny.

I hiked down 80 feet of rime-covered rocks and clipped in.

Crappy rime-covered stuff I had to hike down to get to the snow.

The snow was actually pretty decent... dry, smooth and fast - just like....

My less-than-direct run of about 2100ft.

You'll note that my snowboard turns have two frequency components to them. Couloirs adjusted to my specific parameters are hard to find, that's why I stick to open slopes.

A thousand feet lower, the "less than 1 inch of new" made the boarding slow and sticky. Oh well.

I boarded this narrow streambed in classic snowboard style - if you know what I mean.

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.

Bonus rime feathers photo.
This place might be nice in winter.

Map of my day.