Alpine biking - April 19, 2002
After not being able to find any partners for my original, rather ambitious,
midweek ski trip, I set out for my backup plan. This was to ski up
Hidden Lake peak, or somewhere around there. Some of us had done this two years
previous around this time, and it was perfect: drive up the road until you hit snow,
then continuous snow for skiing after that.
Cascade River road was supposedly closed at MP 7 due to an avalanche, so I
brought my bike with me, knowing there was probably lots of dry road past the closure.
Just past MP7, I saw the "road closed" sign, but it looked fine, so I drove around it.
Not too sure why it was "closed" the road is in great shape, no slides, just a little
bit of bridge damage from a mud slide. I took Sibley Ck road (MP 10?), and in a
hundred yards or so, it was blocked by a fallen tree, and there was (to my suprise)
another car parked here.
No snow in sight, and I figured I'd be able to gain a good amount of elevation on my
bike, so off I went. Hmm, lotsa downed trees. Some of them quite a struggle to haul
a bike over/under. I rounded the second switchback, and the "fallen tree density" seemed
to have increased exponentially. After probably 50 trees, I decided a bike was useless,
and ditched it in the woods.
Some peak up the Marble Creek drainage (Pk 6329?)
I continued to the next switchback. This was becoming miserable. There
was a huge pile of trees every 50 feet. This was turning into a bushwhack, no
fun with skis. In my 1.3 miles from the car, which had taken over an hour, I had
probably had to climb over, under, around about 500 trees. There was no way I was
even going to make it to treeline at this pace. So I bailed.
Typical sections of Sibley Creek road.
Doing a trip in this area is committing. If you bail for some reason
related to your low elevation, there aren't really any backup options if the North
Cascades highway is still closed. So I thought I'd just head up to the Ross Lake
area and take in the views. On the way back out Cascade River road, I looked
back towards the huge open slopes near Hidden Lake Peak, and convinced myself that
they were getting too much sun for there to be any powder left. Yeah.
Colonial, yikes
Back on highway 20, I headed east. Once at the winter closure, I thought I might ride my bike up the closed road a bit.
I contemplated taking my skis, but seeing how it was already past 1pm, I didn't think
I'd have enough energy or time to ski anything along the way.
Cleared out slide near MP 138. Note the bike for size, and
the 5 "levels" the bulldozer had to make for them to clear it out.
Though I was frustrated by yet another thwarted trip, my mood slowly began to improve as I
biked along the road amidst beautiful scenery - it was totally peaceful,
no one else around. Hmm, I guess this road biking thing can be kind of fun sometimes.
I bet it would be easier if I didn't have knobby tires though.
Me pretending to me a d.o.t. worker.
The only problem with road biking if you aren't really a biker, is your ass is not
conditioned. The biking itself was easy, but oh my ass was getting totally sore!
After 10 miles or so, I put my toque on my bike seat to cushion it a little more.
Porcupine Peak
I finally reached Swamp Creek and decided here was far enough. The road had been
totally plowed to here, why don't they let people in? Oh well, the solitude was nice
right now. I hadn't seen any sign of the dot workers clearing the road, except for
scattered equipment here and there.
Greybeard, yikes
On the return trip, I realized I'd had the wind at my back for most of the day. No
matter, its mostly downhill. Especially the long coast down to Canyon Creek - that was
sweet!
Heading back
The last few miles back to the gate are uphill. blech! But nice to spend a day on highway 20
in total solitude - how often does that happen?
Addendum
More often than you'd think.
On Sunday, Andrew and I headed back here, with skis. The forecast called for sunshine,
and it was pretty confident, we're in the middle of a high pressure system. Well, it was
overcast in Seattle, the rain started in Everett, and continued until just about Diablo.
At the winter closure, it was merely overcast. Not a spot of blue. Cold, windy, the
peaks were shrouded in clouds. Didn't seem like something that would "burn off", as it
was supposed to. So we almost bailed here.
However, the novelty of attaching our skis to our bikes spurred us on, and after
15 minutes of fiddling with systems, we were on our way. Turns out skis fit really
nicely, and biking in ski boots is no problem (unless you have clipless pedals, like
Andrew). Just make sure not to swing your leg around behind your seat as you dismount.
Andrew making an adjustment just after we started.
Sometime just after noon we arrived at the Easy Pass trailhead (currently Easy Ass,
if you approach from the east), and decided this was far enough (my ass decided for us).
There was probably 4-5 feet of snow on the side of the road. We put the skis on and
headed down to Granite Creek. A ski tour up to Easy Pass and Ragged Ridge was one of the first
trips
I ever did in the Cascades. On that trip, my brother and I skied absolutely
impeccable corn snow on a glacier on the north side of the ridge. But slogging gear
up to the pass, I definitely didn't find "easy".
The scariest bit was inching across a log above the raging torrent of Granite
Creek, fearful of being swept away. So I was a little conerned.
Well, today the creek was but a mere shadow of its raging torrent self,
but still too deep to cross without a log. The one log in the
vicinity was perfect, except the snow on top (piled 3 or 4 feet high), was only one ski
wide at one end - the deep end!
Turned out to be not so bad, and a short time later we arrived at the open slopes
leading up to Easy Pass. It was cold, breezy, with occasional snow pellets, and the
snow was getting worse with every foot of elevation we gained. I figured our only
chance was to find powder, so we skied up a north-facing shoulder of Greybeard
to about 5700ft, but it only got windier and icier above, so we stopped here.
Andrew cranking turns in crust below Greybeard. There's
a patch of fat blue ice between the two snowfields...
The snow was semi-breakable icy crust, not very enjoyable but oh well. Lower
down it was slushy crust, and soon we were skiing back through the forest,
back across the log, and back onto highway 20. There were now a few small spots
of blue sky floating around the dull grey medium above.
Look at me and my fancy gear!
At 4:30, we started back towards Ross Lake. Again, the descent on bike to Canyon Creek
was the best part of the trip! 10 miles of paved curvy downhill, no traffic to worry
about - I guess it's to road biking what a sweet backcountry powder run is to skiing.
Drafting behind Andrew, I even got face shots of road muck as he biked through
wet spots (hmm, sounds kinky). However, with the draft, I was able
to almost entirely avoid any pedaling on the descent, which was
very helpful to me and my weak legs.