2015-12-27 - Mount Si West Face Ski
A: Yes, and I'm never doing that again.
Turns out Troy and I build off each other's crazy ideas. Earlier this week I was getting antsy to go ski and get my fix. With the pass closed at exit 34, my mind wandered. So I asked Troy if he thought the big gulley on Si was skiable. Turns out it is.
We left the Little Si trailhead at 7:45am and easily reached the Si / Little Si saddle. Turning off trail, we found the slopes to be much gentler and much more open than expected (a major win when carrying skis on your back!). We easily climbed through ferns and downfall. At about 1700ft we found our first bits of snow and slowed down. The snow happily covering moss covered talus fields (little happy mossy rocks, as Bob Ross would say). The snow deepened quickly and after about 100ft of wallowing in knee deep snow, it was time to put on skis at 2100ft. This was also the tail end of the big avy gulley that we ended up skiing.
There was recent avy debris from yesterday or the day before. Given limited precip since then, we took that as a good sign and started making our way up. Snow quality was good - moist, heavy, and very well consolidated sitting on many distributed anchors. We worked our way up and, trying to find older growth took a climbing traverse quite a bit climber's right. The travel was thick, and travel was slow. Around 2:30 we decided to start making our way back left towards our intended ski line, getting there around 3:00. We hadn't gained as much elevation as we would have liked, but with a storm coming in, daylight waning, and the potential for heavily loaded slopes above us we decided it was time to go.
We found reasonably safe terrain on the shoulder of the main gulley. The gouging in the center was immense, and it looked like at these elevations something had released and traveled down the main depression in the middle of the chute. We stayed out of that and decided that descending quickly was our best bet.
Skied safe-zone to safe-zone on the way out, quickly reaching our initial boot-to-skin transition point. From there it was a long slog back out through those same snow covered rocks (now covered with more snow, since it had been snowing for a couple hours). We made it safely back the trail and then out to our cars.
As I always do on these types of trips, I feel an incredible sense of accomplishment. We carried our skis for hours on our backs, through some pretty crappy terrain, to get 20 stupid turns in at the top, and I couldn't be happier. That being said, next trip out I'm skinning from the parking lot.
Troy is an absolute asset to have in the backcountry, and I had a blast with him. Hope to get out with him again sometime soon.
9.6 miles, 14 hours, 3244ft ascent, 20 turns.
Troy in good spirits as we started our bushwhack up.
First signs of consolidated snow. Snow covered talus field, yes please.
Still on the way up.
Finally, skis on! Just in time to notice the avy debris at the bottom of the chute. Looks like it went yesterday? Anyways, avy mode on.
Still skinning up.
Obvious flagging in some pretty heavy trees. This slide has gone BIG before.
Troy breaking trail (thanks Troy! You're amazing).
As we went up we found progressively denser trees. Picking our way through them was a challenge.
The edges of the chutes had plenty of new growth that we had to punch through. Here's Troy making his way through a particularly thick example.
Crossing the small chute, skier's left of the big gulley. Pucker factor high.
Our ski run - moderate slope on the shoulder (left) of a clearly gouged avy chute. Lots of signs of recent activity here and wind loading from the ridge above.
Let's ski! Trying to knock snow off to see if we can get anything to move. We had been trying to get things to go all day, and couldn't get any of our kick turn switchbacks to go. Snow was heavy and cohesive, with pinwheels becoming larger later in the day.
Hey, Troy's a pretty good skier.
Three linked turns is the rule. Here's #3.
My turn.
Skiing the shoulder. Here was great skiing. A little further down it became much more challenging. Snow snakes turned into trees and rocks just waiting to eat you.
Troy picking his way through trees.
Troy picking his way through trees.
