Jove peak, skiing, January 5, 2002

This was "just a ski trip", but was notable for a couple of reasons, which will become evident.

The plan was to go check out the northwest side of Nason Ridge, hopefully getting as high as 4500ft by snowmobile, on a logging road, approaching from Lake Wenatchee. This would hopefully get us some good north-facing powder.

Silas was my only partner for this venture, and as we pulled into the end of the plowed section of Little Wenatchee River Road, I was a little dismayed by what I saw - a 6 foot high wall of snow - how would I get the sled across?

My worries were unwarranted though, as we spotted a sled track heading off into the woods, which rejoined the road on the other side of the wall of snow. Within a short time, my sled was off the trailer, and I drove it around through the woods (cool!) and successfully around the gate. The snow surface on the road was firm, it looks like this is a somewhat popular sledding area. But we were the first ones today, and there were a couple inches of fresh. We were somewhat suprised by the amount of snow at this low elevation (2000ft) - probably at least 2 feet.

I zipped off down the wide roadway, Silas in tow, dodging the odd fallen tree. The fresh snow made it a smooth ride. We turned south, and at the 8 mile mark, reached the desired logging road branch, and stopped for a break. There was a good amount of new snow here on all aspects - we thought everything would have been baked by the sun, and we'd be searching hard for sheltered powder, but it didn't look like that would be the case.

The branch had sled tracks on it, which was good, as mine can't go in deep snow. About a hundred yards up, a complication! A fallen tree combined with a cross-ditch several feet deep. I went for it, and managed not to get stuck - in my head I have the illusion that I'm a hard core sled-head! Silas just barely held on. Then, 50 yards later, another complication! A deeper ditch! The other sled tracks turned around here. I went to inspect - it was about 8 feet deep, unbridged, running water! No way was I getting across that! From here it was still at least 2000ft to open slopes, so we decided to bail on this plan.

Our route in blue (sled = solid, ski = dotted).

Instead, we continued up the main road - didn't this lead to the Jove/Union peak area, I thought? Silas suspected it would be another 10 miles before we got that far. I suspected he was right, but we continued anyway. The weather got worse, and fog and clouds moved in. But, the snow kept getting deeper and softer the higher we got - the freezing level was supposed to rise to 7000ft this day, but it sure wasn't happening yet, at least not here. Finally, after 4 miles, we were approaching a valley head, and there appeared to be some alpine terrain above us, so we ditched the sled, got out our skis, and headed up into the woods. We really had no idea where we were, as we didn't have a map of this section, and the peaks were clouding up.

In a couple of minutes, we hit an open talus field, and Silas spotted a skin track above us. Whoa! He thought to himself "this looks a lot like the approach to Jove Peak". Then, he looked up at the open slopes to the north and thought "that looks a lot like Jove Peak". It took him a few minutes, but he finally put two and two together, and announced that indeed, we must be near Jove Peak! That would explain the skin tracks. It would have been a lot quicker to reach this from highway 2, but oh well, we're here now.

We hopped on the established skins tracks, and continued on a gentle traversing ascent to the gap between Jove and Union peak, where we caught up to the stragglers of the group that had established the uphill track. In last place, was a guy on show shoes, carrying heavy alpine skis. Soon, the others appeared. Silas cautioned me against going to fast, lest we reach the front of the line and have to break trail.

Silas gettin' some powder action.

Most of this group of six were on tele gear. I was caught behind one of them for a good distance, and had a chance to make some tele vs. randonee observations. This was only my second time on my lightweight randonee setup, but the pounds it saves over my tele gear was hugely noticeable. The guy in front of me had what appeared to be a super heavy tele setup - wide skis, targa bindings and large plastic boots. The innefficiecy of tele gear for climbing was evident - he would lift his skis during each stride, instead of sliding them, because of the stiffness of the boot bellows and cable. I think my ascent was effortless by comparison. However, as I found out the previous weekend in Rainy Pass, tele gear is definitely the shit for rolling terrain.

We zig-zagged back and forth along the forested ridge crest, and finally approached the summit. The snow was a little wind-crusted up here.

A quick bite to eat, and Silas and I headed down to get first tracks. The top few hundred feet, mostly open terrain, was a little tricky due to the wind crust. But at a bench, we entered more gladed terrain, and the snow was great. Nice and dry, with awesome varied terrain, little steep shots through the trees. I now had the chance to make some more tele vs. rando observations. I felt like my skiing ability had improved a few notches with that locked heel - hmm, kind of fun! But I kept picking up too much speed and had to be careful I didn't "Bono" myself on a tree. Hmm --- locked heels, snowmobile - aah! what's happening to me!?

We did about a 1000ft run through super terrain, before deciding to head back up. We had just enough time to summit again, and try to ski down a chute on the southeast side of the mountain, right back to where the sled was parked. However, visibility dropped sharply on the way back up, and we decided it would be better to simply retrace our steps through the gap.

Let's just say that Silas is lucky that humans aren't targets for predators.

We encountered the other party skiing down. They must have had a long, windy, summit break! There was a lone female skier in their party. As she skied past me, she said "Don't look at me, I don't know how to do a tele-turn!" Uh... ok. As she skied past Silas, she said the same thing. Suddenly Silas' voice grew all loud, deep and echoey, and he belted out "We shall be the judge of all skiing!".

We began a traverse towards the gap, and skied more nice shots as necessary to lose vertical. Hit the gap almost spot on, and then did our descent to the sled.

But the day was not over yet.

Silas started skiing back, while I got the sled started. I pulled away, and did a quick check behind me to make sure I hadn't left anything. There was a gray thing in the snow. Oh! My fleece sweater. I had stuffed it under the front of the sled when we got here in the morning. I had run over it! It was fine, but was it a harbinger of things to come?

About 5 miles from the parking, Silas' knees need a break, and I'm getting hungry, so I stop the sled for a break.

Sledders have been highmarking on the road cut next to us. I spot a red object in the snow. It looks like maybe a part of a snowmobile frame? There is a dark black area of snow further up in the highmark track. Did he run into dirt? I go up to inspect.

The red thing turns out to be the rib cage and spinal column of an animal, still with flesh and blood hanging off. I walk past it to the black thing. It is the previous owner of the rib cage: the remains of a dog, smushed into the snow with fur and flesh spread over a distance of at least 20 feet. The only body parts I can make out are two or three dismembered paws. I am baffled at who could do such a cruel thing. Then Silas points out that it looks like an accident. Above the dog, there are tracks in the snow, coming down from the top of the road cut. It looks like the dog was running towards its master perhaps, and collided head on with the sled. Sad...

The large splotch is the bulk of the dog, the rib cage is the lower item.

We try to piece together what happened, but it is still a bit confusing. Why is the rib cage so far removed from the rest of the animal? Shouldn't there be more blood and guts? Perhaps a wild animal has already "had at it", so to speak? It looks very recent - perhaps it even happened earlier today - there is only a light dusting of snow on the animal. We didn't notice it on the way in, but then, it wasn't overly obvious from the road.

The stench grows too offensive, and I go back down to the sled.

The trip back to the truck is uneventful, except for zipping by some slow-going snowshoers. Just as we get back, two old guys (probably in their 70's) on sleds arrive back too. We talk with them for a while, and they are the nicest sledders I've ever met! One of them just goes sledding once a year, and today was the big day.