Mt. Bailey Hut Trip 2013

You never know what you're going to get with the Oregon Cascades. Rain. Blower Pow. Sun. Sometimes all within the same day. We had booked our stay at the Hemlock Butte cabin at the base of Mt. Bailey in the fall, not knowing what sort of weather would greet us when we finally made the trip in March. Leading up to the trip, the weather forecast was for clouds and rain. We went for it anyway and, overall, we were pleasantly surprised.

Photo Credit: Gordon Levitt

Day 1:

I met Jared, Alex, and Gordon at the trailhead midmorning. They had come up from Eugene. I had been staying with friends and family in Bend, so I arrived separately. I was a little late getting there, and the crew was anxious to get going. We loaded up our pulks and started hiking into the cabin at around 11:00am. Temperature were warm, and muggy.

Skinning up the Cat Track

Alex and I had each built a pulk out of plastic sleds, pvc pipe, and skis from Goodwill. Jared had brought his kids' ski chariot. All the pulks functioned surprisingly well, and we each hauled around 60-80 lbs of food, gear, and beer out to the cabin. Loaded down it took us around an hour and a half to hike the three miles to the hut. I had received a phone call from the ranger station a few days before the trip informing me that the hut was all out of wood. A great deal of our weight was the firewood we hauled into the hut. However, when we got there we found plenty of wood. 

We started a fire to dry out the musty cabin and started making ourselves at home in the little A-frame. The cabin has three floors: a ground with a wood burning stove, some benches and a table, then two upper floors for sleeping areas. After snacking and organizing our gear, we decided to go poke around the mountain that we would be climbing and skiing for the next two days.

The Hemlock Butte cabin is right at the East base of Mt. Bailey and almost due North of Crater Lake. From the cabin we hiked around a quarter mile before we started gaining elevation on Mt. Baileys SE ridge. As we hiked, clouds moved in and a light rain started to fall. Due to the limited visibility, the rain, and general tiredness from hauling all of our gear in to the cabin, we decided to ski off the ridge into the  East bowl, well below the summit. Despite the cloud cover, the snow was mashed potatoes.

We returned to the cabin, cooked up a big dinner, drank a few beers, and passed out early in preparation for a big day.

Day 2:

The crew woke up and got breakfast going around 7:00am. There was no refreeze where we were at 7000 feet, but we hoped the upper mountain would have better snow. We were on the snow by 8:30. Alex headed off on his cross country skis to explore Diamond Lake, and Gordon, Jared and I began ascending the SE ridge. We reached the saddle below the summit at around 9:30. The summit of Mt. Bailey is difficult to access from the SE ridge. We decided to ski down into the bowl and approach the summit from the North ridge of the East Bowl. We descended around 1800 feet. The snow was mashed potatoes still, but not as bad as it had been the day before.

After we had all descended the East Bowl, we cut a skin track up to the NE ridge, and made the summit by 11:30. By that point, the sun was out, and we had clear views of Mt. Thielsen, Crater Lake, Mt. McLaughlin, and Mt. Shasta far off in the distance.

From the summit, we decided to ski the North Bowl, which offers the steepest, longest runs on Mt. Bailey. The bowl can be highly avalanche prone, so it is worth doing a little snowpack analysis before dropping in. The snow in the North Bowl was
quite a bit colder than the snow we had been skiing so far on Mt. Bailey.

After we were satisfied as to the stability of the snowpack, I dropped in first. The descent was epic. Nearly 2000 feet of untracked snow at a consistent pitch of 30-40 degrees. There are no safe-zones on the entire run, so we each skied the line top to bottom without stops. By the time I reached the bottom my legs were burning, but I had a huge grin on my face. Wow. What a run. Gordon came next followed by Jared. Gordon won the award for noodling the most turns down the mountain, and Jared got the big air award by sending a small rock midway down the slope.


After a round of high fives, we put on our skins and started contemplating how to get back up and over to the East Bowl. There were two options: set a steep skin track through the loose trees on the looker's left of the bowl, or ascend the ridgeline that bifurcates the North Bowl. The ridgline appears less exposed so we traversed below the bowl and began skinning up the ridge. However, the ridge was much steeper and more exposed than we expected. After skinning around 500 verticle feet, we opted to take off our skis and start booting. The exposure was intimidating. Though the footholds were secure, it was scary ascending what became a 45 degree slope without an ice axe and crampons.

After nearly an hour of climbing, we finally reached the summit. It was mid-afternoon and the snow was isothermic. We skied the gut of the East Bowl, doing our best to manage the wet slough that we were producing with each turn. Despite how heavy the snow was, the skiing remained pretty good. We skied out the the bottom of the bowl, and after a short traverse we were back at the cabin.

That night, David, Jake, and Pete joined us. They didn't arrive at the Cabin until after 11:00pm. We ate and drank a little before everyone passed out.

Day 3:

Overnight our group had doubled in size. David and Jake had driven up from Eugene after work, and Pete had driven in from Medford. We finally got moving after a big breakfast. The snow remained warm overnight, and we figured we only had one run in before the snow would be too warm to be fun or safe. We ascended to the SE saddle below the summit and decided to ski from there.

The snow was soft and heavy, but consistent and made for fun skiing. The top of the East Bowl is quite steep, probably approaching 45 degrees. However,  the pitch mellows out in the lower part of the bowl and you can really open up your turns.

The group reconvened at the cabin. We at the last of our food, and packed up the packs and pulks. We said a sad farewell to our little cabin and started the ski back to the car.

Considering the weather forecast had been for three days of rain, we felt pretty satisfied with the conditions we got: soft snow, sun, and nearly 10,000 vertical feet of skiing.

Gordon setting the bootpack up the North Bowl