The road to Lanham Lake Trailhead was a bit too deep for my CrossTrek to get over so kidzwonthike and I decided for another plan B snowshoe with little to no recon. We both settled on doing Cowboy Mountain and trying for Big Chief via the high ridge traverse in the resort. HAHAHAH... what a riot that was thinking we could get over there.
We ended up doing about 3.4k' and 6.9 miles and we were out for 9.5 hours.
I attached an awesome video of the Beaver Moon making the snow sparkly ☺️.
A note on uphill travel/snowshoeing at Stevens
First off, uphill travel is allowed right now. Stevens Pass employees are preparing the resort for opening day in a couple weeks (yes, two weeks!!). You need to be mindful of snow cats and other machinery as well as folks doing work when at the resort. Going uphill in the resort is a privilege that needs to be respected or it can and will be taken away. Stevens also has an uphill policy that needs to be followed. Snowshoeing is generally verboten during ski season because it screws up the groomed tracks; this is part of the reason why we didn't do this during the winter over the past couple years. More info can be found on the Stevens Pass Mountain Safety page.
Next (and this is important), all ski resorts have avalanche terrain in-bounds by design. There isn't any ski patrol actively patrolling the resort, either, so you're on your own.
The Trip
Cowboy Mountain
It was really straightforward how we would head up to Cowboy Mountain: follow Skyline/Brooks Chair staying to the sides, then make a run up the slopes from the top of Skyline Chair. Getting up to Skyline was relatively easy, but getting from Skyline to Cowboy's summit was quite difficult (35°+ slopes), since we kind of handlined the Solitude run (double black), then walked the ridge. The snow, the sidehilling, and the vegetation (huckleberry bushes), plus the blowdowns made for a really sucky, strenuous snowshoe.
Once we got up to the ridge it was reasonably straightforward following it to the summit, but we had to mind our Ps and Qs around steep terrain and oodles of exposed boulders and boulder gaps (more on that later).
Cowboy Mountain to Gemini [run]
This is what ate up so much time today. I've discovered that the backcountry/sidecountry at Stevens Pass is hard to negotiate because of micro terrain, tight tree cover, and other things. Today added big boulder fields into the mix 😔. We had to take a super circuitous route, which involved steep sidehilling, veggie belaying over steep drop-offs (in bounds by Hogsback chair/run, mind you!) until we hit the power lines, then walked the road to a point and had to go straight uphill 200' until we hit a ridge spine and could go down to the Gemini [run] traverse. Over the course of the traverse we ran into: 1) huge voids between boulders (yay for snowshoes and trekking poles with baskets finding thin air!), 2) steep low coverage slippery fresh powder (dear lord--I do not like class 2/3 snowshoeing 😔), 3) buried trees and tree wells, and 4) strenuous uphill trail breaking where I was getting up to my thighs in deep powder while zig zagging uphill doing kickturns with my snowshoes with trails to make the slope angle more negotiable. Needless to say, it was a struggle (who's great idea was it to snowshoe after a storm dumped 1'+ of snow on Stevens?! Oh wait...).
Gemini to Double Diamond Chair / the radio tower
This part was straightforward; just hard on the uphill. We ran into some snowboarders and tried to stay off to the side, use their downhill tracks (no one wants to use those after they freeze; they're garbage to ride on), and avoid going up/down the skin tracks.
We made it over to Double Diamond Chair, right as the sun was setting and blue hour was starting. It was gorgeous and I was getting really distracted by the pretty mountains (Jim Hill, the Chiwaukums, Nasikelt Peak, etc). The blue hour only made it better.
We gave it our best, but only made it to the radio tower on the ridge adjacent to Big Chief Mountain. Just too many steep slopes with snow covered boulders to negotiate. 3/4 of a mile over bad terrain like that seemed like a horrible idea; it reminded me a lot of the setup for Alpine Lookout, which was why I was so reluctant to push further.
The walk out with the blue hour setting in was fantastic, but the really awesome part was when the moon came out; the Beaver Moon was such an brilliant shade of yellowy orange. It was so awesome!!
Dudley's to the Tye Mill Chair
We took the traverse back over to Skid Road, but went down Crest Trail instead of Skid Road. It was ok, but there were a lot of exposed huckleberry bushes and the creek that's usually covered up made for interesting navigation/negotiation. It's so different early season compared to when I've snowboarded the many times before. We switched over to Skid Road and went down some snowboarder down tracks (for comfort and to leave untouched powder for other users).
Tye Mill Chair to the Base
A snow cat had come up to Tye Mill Chair and made the walk down so much easier. It was nice walking consolidated snow for once, not having to worry about sinking in every other step 🙄. The cat track went down 76 Road and Daisy, then we walked uphill by the rope tow (the cat was mashing down snow in the learning area 😅) and walked out by Granite Lodge.
Avalanche/Snow Conditions
Deep, unconsolidated powder (at least 1-2' in areas, with <3" in others). A lot of it was windswept on the ridges and there were deep powder stashes down in the basins. But I was triggering slides, small pinwheels/rollerballs, and isolated slab breakages on slopes over 35°. The purchase was really bad with snowshoes. I would not advise others follow in our tracks.
Comments
ricola on Cowboy Mountain, Big Chief Mountain
"Going uphill in the resort is a privilege that needs to be respected or it can and will be taken away. Stevens also has an uphill policy that needs to be followed."
Actually I believe its quite the opposite. Operating a commercial 'for profit' enterprise on public (ahem, tribal) lands is the ultimate privilege. Stevens Pass is operated under an operating agreement license approved by the USFS and there's obviously a great deal of corruption in politics in which Vail have negotiated the terms in their favor.
"Snowshoeing is generally verboten during ski season because it screws up the groomed tracks;"
I understand from an employee that Snowshoeing isn't allowed when the resort is open because its dangerous for paying guests; skiers/boarders cannot see below them as they're riding down the mountain at high speed and don't want to hit a random person slogging up on snowshoes. When there's an accident its messy because the snowshoer didn't sign a waiver but will probably sue Vail anyway. They are on the "worlds most hated company" list after all :)
Posted by:
ricola on Nov 24, 2021 07:18 PM
ngie on Cowboy Mountain, Big Chief Mountain
Hi there!
I agree that in principle Vale shouldn’t be calling the shots, the Chelan tribe should, but because the lands are USFS managed and Stevens Pass has leased the lands, unfortunately they call the shots.
It’s not just worry about collisions with downhill folks (but you’re right—that’s probably the #1 reason why)—there’s probably concern dealing with avalanche mitigation (before first chair until last chair) and messing up the groomed tracks can result in serious injury to downhill riders.
Vale’s not a great company, but honestly, this is the MO a lot of ski resorts have with USFS in WA state. They tightly regulate uphill ridership by requiring people to sign waivers with ski patrol and check in when starting out (Crystal), pay a fee (Mt Spokane), allow uphill traffic only on certain days/times (Baker, Snoqualmie West, White Pass), or ban it completely in-bounds (Alpental, Snoqualmie East/Central IIRC, etc).
Posted by:
ngie on Nov 25, 2021 09:56 AM