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Trip Report | Old Snowy Mountain |
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Goat Rocks, the remnants of a giant volcano. This remote mountain group, protected by the Goat Rocks Wilderness Area, is half way between Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier in the State of Washington. Winter access is difficult, spring access not much easier. The area is skied occasional, and an overnight trip is mandatory. |
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On our Hogsback backcountry skiing trip in late February, Mark and I kept staring at this small group of mountains and peaks just south of the White Pass ski area. Perfectly sloped snowfields below the rocky summits have drawn our attention. "Mark, this just looks like my home mountain range back in the Alps!" A while ago I stumbled across this website, created by two brothers, doing some interesting ski-touring in the Goat Rocks area. I would love to go there and ski some of the peaks. "Let's do it, this spring, as an overnighter!" Mark replied. Winter went on, spring approached but only on the calendar and month after month passed by. Late May I called Mark checking if he has some time to spare, and we pinned it down for the first week of June. Two other friends joined in and we left town early Saturday morning. We took this trip very serious as you can see... ...Robin, Mark and Jay, waiting for the departure at the trailhead. We left the car at about 1 PM, with heavy packs hiking through the woods towards Tieton Pass. Navigating became the main task, the trail was buried under 2 or 3 feet of snow and there was no obvious sign of where to go. After one interesting creek crossing and 4 hours of boot packing we arrived at the intersection with the PCT trail at the pass. A short snack break and off we went towards our planned campsite in the McCall Basin. This took us about an other 2 hours until we got the heavy packs off our shoulders. Camp was establishes quick, pitching the tent, boiling water, preparing dinner and we got a small wood fire going to stay warm till bedtime.
Bedtime came around 10 PM shortly after daylight faded into a dark night. It was getting colder, light drizzle started but we were in good hope, the weather forecast was calling for a weather window with blue skies for Monday. The drizzle turned into light snow dusting during the night. Waking up in crisp and cold morning air was a bit of a challenge, at least for me, it was already June 2nd on the calendar. But the warm morning sun got the blood stream going in no time and we enjoyed breakfast in pleasant temperatures. The foggy clouds burned off in no time and within 2 hours we got ready for our ski adventure on Old Snowy Mountain.
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