Magic Mountain couloir attempt - May 15, 2004
The road was gated at 21 miles, which left a mile and a half before the summer parking lot. From just before the summer lot, we skied nearly continuous snow up to Cascade Pass, reaching the pass (5400ft) in about 2 hours from the car.
The ski down from the pass over to the opposite side of Pelton Basin (about 1 mile) took about 10 minutes, much of it through chunky yet softening avy debris. No view of the couloir yet. It was now 9am, and we just started skinning up towards the snout of the Yawning, planning to veer right to a still-snow-covered ridge that led up to the bench below the couloir.
We took off our skis at about 10am and began postholing through up to two feet of slush along the ridge (the nearby rocks were rotting the snow). Up on the bench, it was easier going, but still about a foot of slush.
As we entered the couloir, Bill saw a few small rocks roll down. We headed up the left side in the shade, where the snow was firmer and the footing better. Bill made fun of me for wearing crampons, but I say you never know what you're going to step on, and balling up isn't a problem going uphill. He also made fun of me for using my ice axe. Neither the crampons nor the axe were necessary it turns out (an axe serves no purpose if its length is inserted into slush).
We made our way up to a rock on the left side of the gully. Occasional snow balls came down and pelted us. The snow sucked and it would be easy to set off a wet slide on the way down... breakable crust on slush (though the crust was firmer and unbreakable on skis in the shade, but not much of the gully was in the shade. Or rather, much of it had been in the sun for most of the morning). The past few nights must have been cloudy and the snow didn't get a good freeze.
Do we continue? We couldn't really decide, so Bill crossed the runnel and began heading up the right side of the couloir (left side seemed to have more objects coming down). Back to slush again. We met up below the next rock. We reconsidered our situation again, but couldn't really decide - again. Above us was a beautiful line, curving out of sight to the left - the lure on the unknown drawing us upward - a counterpoint to the horrible conditions and not-so-great objective hazard.
So Bill continued on up... soon sinking in to ever-worsening slush. Hmm. Ok, we finally decided to call it a day. It was 11am.
He got back to me, and about a minute later without any audible warning, a basketball sized rock came tumbling down the center of the couloir. That thing could have broken a leg for sure.
With our skis on, Bill traversed across the runnel and into the shade... good turns there. When he was just below the shelter of the rock, a snow slab broke off the left side of the couloir and slid down, breaking into some TV-sized pieces. "What was that?" I heard him say.
The skiing was actually pretty decent, especially in the shade. Where we turned around it was about 45 degrees (and what we could see above didn't look any steeper), with the shaded part lower down about 40 degrees. The runout of the couloir is over cliffs - you need to traverse right on the bench.
Back into the Yawning Glacier basin, we tried to scout out a descent route. The snow was better/firmer here. Eventually, since the weather was still good, we decided to head up to the col for a view. It was only about 600ft, and we reached it about noon.
It was a little too breezy for relaxing and eating lunch, so we made the 2000ft descent back into Pelton Basin. The snow was excellent and smooth, with about an inch of recent melt-freeze snow on top of a crust.
Once back up at Cascade Pass, we headed a little higher up Mixup Arm to get a more direct descent down the other side.
A fun day overall, despite our "failure"... we put in 6000ft of vertical so it was a good workout, most of the skiing was good, and we got to see some new terrain.
We must try, try, try.