Snoqualmie Mountain, Northwest face
Part I - reconnaissance - March 26, 2000

View over to Chair Peak from the saddle beside the northwest face.

 

A secret couloir on the northwest face of Snoqualmie Mountain. That was detestination Greg and I set out for on this beautiful late winter day. What did we know about it? Not much. The Becky guide refered to a "steep, narrow" gully, and gave it a grade II, class 4 rating. A few times, I had listened in on other people's conversations about the climb. Apparently, it was commonly soloed in spring conditions, leading me to believe it was simply a steep snow climb during that time of year. And the secretive nature of the gully was enticing. Though I've spent many days in the Snoqualmie Pass hinterlands, I've never seen that side of the mountain, except in steep profile. Apparently the gully wasn't even visible until you were a few feet away from it.

The two of us left the upper parking lot at around 7am. After hiking on the cat track for around 10 or 15 minutes, we left it and followed some old tracks to a stream crossing. I had gambled by not taking any snowhoes. Well, I don't own snowshoes, and I didn't feel like lugging skis up a steep mountainside. As soon as we entered forest, I began sinking in to my knees. Hmm.

However, we soon found an open gully leading up in the direction we wanted. The snow here was firm, and we ascended quickly. Eventually, the gully we were following steepened considerably and became hard and icy. We stopped next to a tree to put on crampons, and Greg got out his second tool for extra security. We deviated out of the gully into steep lightly treed stuff. It's hard to imagine a scary slope in a forest, but it was... it probably steepened to 50 degrees or so... not too hard with crampons, but at one point the snow turned slushy, and my footholds started collapsing. A fall would have sucked. But I got out of that and it wasn't hard, just exhilerating.

We got to flatter stuff, and made our way up to a saddle overlooking the northwest face of Mt. Snoqualmie. No couloir was evident... but of course we knew it was "hidden". We saw a groove on the topo that probably indicated the couloir, and we could see an avalanche fan at one point below the nearly vertical 1000ft cliff face. So we knew where the bottom of it was. We projected a line up from the bottom, and it seemed that the couloir would have to pop out mid-face on some steep, snow-covered rock. Bummer. We weren't prepared to deal with that. The rock could certainly be class 4 (in accordance with the guidebook) in dry conditions, but much more difficult with snow on it. Above that section, it looked even steeper, but looks can be deceiving. Nonetheless, our enthusiasm waned. We decided to go and scout it out anyway.

View of the Northwest face from the saddle. We could tell where the bottom of the couloir was (just above the "fan" of trees), but the rest of it was completely hidden. It appeared that the only place it could end up, was on the snow-covered rock in mid-face, in the upper right of the photo.

 

The first problem was how to descend into the basin. It seemed to be corniced everywhere, underneath which was extremely steep lightly forested stuff. We thought about rapelling down, but eventually found an un-corniced entry, where the slope below was only about 45 degrees. Greg was first to go down, plunge-steeping. Before I went down, I recalled the incident on McLellan's Butte two years ago, where a friend of mine watched one of his buddies slide to his death on a seemingly benign slope, because of impacts with trees. I put on my helmet.

Partway down, I saw Greg slip and start to fall. He disappeared over a steeper section, and I could just see him bounce off a tree. Then I saw him slide down further, to a flatter open section below. For a few seconds I got pretty worried, and quickened my pace downwards, but being extra careful. Finally I heard him yell "I'm alright!". Continuing down, I slipped at the exact same spot he did. However, I recovered quickly and didn't fall. I turned around and faced the slope, and climbed down that way, much more secure.

We crossed the basin to the left side of the face. As we approached the avalanche fan, I felt my anticipation grow with each step... what would this secret hidden gully look like?? It felt like we should be able to see it, but we kept on needing to go further to get a good view. We passed through the fall line of the couloir, littered with snow chunks, but we could still not see it. Finally, finally, it came into view, and didn't look too bad at all. We sat down and had some food and drink. There was the constant light tinkley sound of tiny ice particles shooting down the slope, no doubt being melted off the cliffs above by the sun. It was remarkable how constant and evenly distributed they were. When I took my pack off, I dumped the rope bag on the snow. Within 10 minutes, there was a noticeable accumulation of ice particles on the uphill side of the rope bag.

Greg, at the entrace to "Enigma Gully"

 

Looking up the gully, we noticed that there was no way it could possibly top out where we originally thought... the steep snow-covered "class 4" rock. Perhaps it was really snow all the way to the top. We could see maybe 4 or 500 feet of the gully, rising to maybe 40-45 degrees, and then vanishing in a flatter section, and no doubt taking a right turn above that, since we could only see rock straight ahead. It was so extremely entrenched in the mountain face. The flanking walls were nearly vertical unclimbable icy rock. The couloir was basically "inside" the mountain, sort of rising diagonally through the face. After eating, we set off up it aways to check it out. However, the snow got softer and deeper as we climbed into the shaded part of the gully proper. We began to break through the crust underlying the foot or so of powder, into deeper sugary loose snow further down. We turned around. Avalanche danger was a consideration.

Climbing back up the steep slope below the saddle (site of the fall).

 

Back on the ridge top overlook, we analyzed the face and took pictures, for future reference. We still could _not_ see where the couloir was... it looked... "impossible". Greg called it an "enigma of mystery". Some sort of optical illusion. With our newfound knowledge, and a second (fifteenth?) look at the topo map, we distinguished the various summit bumps, and knew where the couloir had to top out. And we knew where it started. It was the 1000ft in between that didn't make sense. The face appeared as one solid vertical rock wall. But somewhere in that deceiving, foreshortened image, was a break, behind which was the deep chasm of the couloir. Finally, by moving back and forth along the ridge, we discovered where the break was, by noticing the relative movements of the patches of snow on the face.

Demystifying "Enigma Gully"

 

It was too early to return to the trailhead, so we sat on top of the ridge, relaxing, in the T-shirt weather. We started feeling stupid that we didn't make an attempt. We decided that the most re-affirming thing that could happen now, was if a big avalanche swept down the gully. That would make us feel good. On the other hand, the worse thing that could happen, was if we saw some skiers ski out from the bottom of the gully.

We started hearing voices. Echoes. We listened more carefully. Yeah, definitely climbing language. "Climbing!" "Falling!" "Off belay!" echoed off the northwest face every few minutes. But where were the people? Then a woman's voice "Wow, this is really cool!".

The thing is, there wasn't really any rock to climb anywhere here, except the northwest face, which only has two feasible routes on it... our couloir, and some crazy 5.8 A3 mixed ice/rock crap (aka "New York gully"). Plus, there were no footprints anywhere below the face, except ours. It just didn't make sense. Could they be on the other side of the ridge? Then how could their voices echo? Another mystery!! It was quiet for a while, then we heared the voices again. Greg finally exclaimed, "I see them!". They were on the same ridge as us, about 200 yards away. They yelled and waved to us. Greg shouted "We wondered where you were climbing." They responded "We just came up through the hole", and then walked off into some trees.

We looked on the way down, and still couldn't figure out what they had been climbing. Weird. The return to the trailhead was a slog in deep slushy afternoon snow. We descended a different way, keeping to the trees. Occasionally I would punch in up to my hips on the 40 degree forest slope, and be thrown forward by my top-heavy pack. Undesirable. The Alpental cat track was a welcome site when we reached it.