Skiing in the Lake Chelan-Sawtooth Wilderness, July 3-5 1999

A poor weather forecast for the 4th of July weekend cancelled an ambitious (for me) climbing trip I had planned, so an alternative plan was in order. Skiing was one thing that could be done no matter what the weather, and the Cascades were still full of snow. So, Matt, Greg, Jesse and I all decided to go on a 3 day ski trip. And, we did what many a Seattleite does when the weather looks bad... head east! Our destination was the sunny Sawtooth mountains near Lake Chelan.

It was hard to get beta on this mountain range... we'd never heard of anyone skiing there, but it sounded like it might be good. The peaks topped out at 8800ft, a respectable elevation for the Cascades. All roads had melted out, so access was no problem. Would there be enough snow? It was hard to imagine there not being enough snow in this record year... many Cascade trailheads were still inaccessible, with snow still lingering as low as 2500ft in some places.

We left Seattle at 7:30am Saturday, and headed over Steven's Pass. Once across the crest, the skies were much clearer. The bright sun provided a needed dose of UV, long since lacking for west-siders.

Skiing fun in the desert, on the way to the Sawtooths.

Matt and I pulled over in Twisp, at our predetermined meeting spot. We waited. And waited. Where were Jesse and Greg? We were sure they'd been ahead of us. After half an hour, I got back in the truck to drive around town looking for them. As soon as I did, they pulled into the parking lot. Greg had some interesting news for us. We were all going on a three day ski trip, and he'd forgotten his ski boots! This realization came way too far from Seattle to retrieve them. And rentals in Wenatchee didn't come through.

We headed up the Twisp River, drove a windy dirt road up the mountain side and into the dark clouds, and found our way to the 5000ft trailhead for Scaffold Ridge. It was raining lightly, with occasional sun. No snow in sight. There were no other cars here, and the trail register showed no parties currently in. The previous two days, a person from Austria had attempted to climb Oval Pk. The comment was "Trail needs to be marked better. Reached shoulder of Oval. Wind, snow, hail."

Getting ready for the hike in. Jesse's making a feeble white boy's attempt at rapping.

With our exceedingly heavy packs on our backs, we began the ascent up the ridge (and we envied Greg's lightweight ski-less boot-less pack, but knew that he would be the one envying us soon enough). We encountered an area of trees that all had goiters. They looked like this.

The trail leveled out and took us through beautiful sagebrush meadows. We realized we'd be hiking to get to camp, not skiing. We decided not to go the full length, and instead set up camp near Oval Peak, a few miles before the main ridge crest. Added incentive was that Oval was the highest peak in the area, and thus would likely have the best chance for good skiing.

The terrain along Scaffold Ridge. We got our first view of Oval Peak here (on the right). The main ridge-crest is on the left.

The trail petered out as it looped around Oval, so we left it for the woods, and bushwhacked up to a lake below the north slope of Oval. 45 minutes later, we arrived at the still frozen, un-named lake. We found a flat spot to camp, and were subsequently engulfed in a snow-squall. Actually, it was more like ice-pellets. Much better than rain, they just bounced off us, and it wasn't windy. On the way, we'd seen a beautiful 1200ft gully to ski, on the north east side of the mountain.

A view of the north face of Oval, from above an un-named lake. Snow squall moving in.

That evening before bed, we took some 600ft runs on the face across from "our" lake. The snow was nice! Jesse lent Greg his skis and boots, and Greg skied down the face in style, the only skiing he was to do on this trip. The skies had cleared somewhat.

Sunset from the ski slope above our camp.

The sun was out the next morning, July 4th, but it still had a decidedly winter-like feel. I raised my Canadian flag, and my American friends burst out into a wonderful rendition of Star Spangled Banner until they got to the point where they forgot the lyrics. Yesterday's snow still dusted the ground, and the slushy edges of the lake had refrozen.

Chopping ice to get water.

We left camp in the late morning sometime, and began heading up Oval via the north slope, and the big gully we eventually wanted to ski. The snow was slick underneath previous day's snow and slush. We were hurting for crampons, (we had decided against bringing them because of the weight). Each step required almost a self-belay, making it a very tedious ascent to the shoulder. Dark clouds had moved in.

Jesse on his way up to the east shoulder of Oval.

As we continued up, Greg left us to explore around and to pursue other non-skiing activities for the day. Little did he know he could have accompanied us all day, and been fine (our hike to ski ratio was about one million).

Upon reaching the east shoulder of Oval, we finally had a view to the main ridge-crest, and the jumble of peaks around Star Mountain. It looked like a lot of good skiing, but it was just a little late in the year. In winter, this place would be fabulous, and powder snow would probably be the rule.

Jesse enjoying his bagel on Oval Peak.

The terrain to the south looked more rugged than the map suggested, and stuff we thought would be skiable turned out to be cliffs. It looked like a long haul to get to good slopes. Nonetheless, we continued on down to a lake on the south side of the peak, and from there we would decide what to do next. This, oh, probably 800 foot descent, took the better part of an hour, as we slogged across endless large blocks of rock. The south side of Oval was a lame disgusting slope of loose rock. A few snow patches lingered, and we headed directly towards those to give ourselves a quicker, more painless descent. Lower down, in the trees, the snow became continuous, and we put on our skis and darted our way in and out of the woods, to a small open north-facing basin with a weird stream. We had a break and discussed our situation.

Matt's expert opinion of the south side of Oval Peak (in the background).

Jesse enjoying the abundant snow of the Sawtooths.

We decided to continue down a drainage and pick up the Scaffold Ridge trail (the continuation of the one we hiked in on yesterday) and travel up the West Fork Buttermilk valley towards Star Mountain.

Several hours later, we reached the open basin below Star. The sun was making more of an appearance now, and, our moral improving, we climbed the open slope in front of us, into the upper basin on Star. Going any further up looked like it would subject us to rocky snow and rockfall, so we took a run of about 800ft from there.

The upper basin on Star.

Matt, on Star Mountain.

I went halfway down the slope first to take pictures. The turns were sweet! Matt came over the ridge, and I started snapping photos of him. As he skied by me, he fell and started sliding down the slope. Kind of dangerous, because there were rocks to avoid. He started yelling, and I thought he was in trouble. Then I realized he was yelling "No photo! No photo!" as he slid uncontrollably down the mountain. He soon came to a stop and was fine.

Matt, just before he fell.

Jesse, tearing up Star.

It was getting late, so we decided against taking another run, and began the long trek back to camp.

Matt satisfies his primal urges on the way back from Star Mountain.

The trek back to camp was way too long. Not willing to contend with the pile of crap that is the south side of Oval, we continued on the Scaffold Ridge trail that skirts the mountain. This meant we might have to descend several hundred feet below our camp, and climb back up to it. Not wanting to do this, we tried to contour, but ran into steep cliffs with undermined snow. Thwarted, we went back to the trail and continued down, down, down, all the while dreading the slog we would have to do to get back up to camp. Finally we reached the drainage heading to our lake, and began the ascent. The woods were dense and swampy and we plodded along in a slow, silent pace.

We passed a stream, like the one we saw earlier today, that was extremely deep. This one was partly underground even, and there was a small whirlpool in one area. Eventually, we passed by the big gully on the north side of Oval, the slope we'd been eyeing all weekend. We intended to save the best for last, and were going to ski that 1200ft before heading out tomorrow. Then I noticed ski tracks near the bottom. What? We looked up and could just barely make out tracks in the top of the gully too! Someone had stolen our prize! My mood went down considerably. To this point we had seen no one else, and now our precious solitude had been ruined, along with our prize gully. Well, ok, "first tracks" on summer snow aren't such a big deal. But I was dreading getting back to camp and discovering another party set up near us. My thoughts began to wander as we continued the slog back to camp. I began wondering where one could go in the Cascades to really get away from it all. I thought this was kind of an out-of-the-way place, but I guess not. I didn't want to let this "ruin" the trip, but it is something so special and rare when you travel to a place and find solitude, and now we'd lost that. I hoped that the folks that skied the gully were day trippers, or that they had camped somewhere else.

View of our "grand prize" gully on Oval

We finally made it back, completely exhausted. There was no one else around except for Greg. My spirits lifted. We asked Greg, keeping warm in his bivi-sac, about his day. We told him about the ski tracks. He was confused. He'd been up and around Oval all day, including to the summit, and he hadn't seen anyone else. My spirits lifted some more. Maybe these were old ski tracks? Hmm.

Darkness was approaching, and the wind was picking up, the temperature dropped below freezing, and we were all exhausted from our ordeal. I began to get very cold, and started shivering. We hastily cooked up our dinners, wolfed them down, and went straight to bed. All I could think of was the warmth of my sleeping bag. The winds died soon though, and the temperature moderated. It ended up being a quite pleasant night, and it signaled a change in the weather from unstable to...

A wicked sunny day! The next morning the sky was a deep blue we hadn't seen a while. There were absolutely no clouds in sight. There was a morning chill, but we knew it would soon pass, and we would be sweating under the hot sun as we climbed. We took it nice and slow, knowing all we were going to do was go ski our slope till the snow got too soft, then hike back out.

Greg and Jesse enjoying the sunny relaxing Monday morning.

A view of Oval Peak from camp, Monday morning.

All four of us headed back up to the east shoulder of Oval, reaching it at about noon. It turned out the ski tracks we saw in our gully were old. We could just barely make them out now while ascending the gully, they were disguised in many days of melt-freeze. I guess the light was just right the evening before, to cause them to jump out in full view. We had this place all to ourselves!

We debated actually trying to summit the peak. We knew the longer we waited, the softer the snow would get... maybe too soft. We also weren't looking forward to a talus slog. But the lure of the summit, and the awesome view that lay beyond, made us decided to go up.

Jesse arriving on the shoulder. The Methow valley is in the background.

A view of the pile of crap (Oval Peak) from the east shoulder.

The talus ended up not being too bad, nothing like the south slope, and we kept to the corniced ridge for much of the ascent. Half an hour later, we reached the summit. The views were awesome, of course.

Greg, Phil, Matt and Jesse on Oval Peak, 8800ft.

On the summit rocks, we noticed something kind of weird. Whole colonies of ladybugs, everywhere. I've never found ladybugs gross before, but it was kind of creepy. We dropped back down to the shoulder, headed over to the gully, strapped on the skis, and began our "climax" descent.

Matt laying tracks down the gully.

Jesse follows

Show us how it's done Jesse!

Back at camp, we relaxed, then slowly packed up and headed out.

Ahhhhhh.....

As I was packing, I noticed my 500mL Nalgene bottle still half full of chocolate brandy sauce used on the angel-food cake. Not wanting to carry this extra weight out, I went to dump it, and jokingly asked if anyone wanted some before I threw it out. Jesse immediately said yes, and soon we were all taking swigs of the half brandy/half chocolate dregs mix.

You da man Jesse!

We bushwhacked out from camp, and eventually found a trail which looked very unfamiliar. It turned out to be the right one, but it sure looked different.

Walking back through the meadows with our super heavy packs. You can't see Greg 'cause he is way ahead of us due to his lack of skis.

View back towards Oval Pk on the hike out. The gully at left was what we skied.

We reached the cars at about 5:30pm, and headed to Twisp to eat before we got ourselves got eaten by the insects.

View of the Methow Valley on the way out.