Mt. Washington 6/29/13

Jake hiking into the NW Bowl of Mt. Washington 

I’ll be honest: every time I wake up at 4:00am to go ski something, I ask myself “why am I doing this?” Usually I’m waking up in the back of my car, or cowboy camped at a dusty trailhead. I’m under slept, under hydrated, and cold. It would be just as easy to roll over, and go back to bed. For some reason, I never do.

Well, this morning I woke up at 4:00am in the back of my car, and I asked myself the usual question. I was camped near the Mt. Washington trailhead with my long-time ski partner Jake. I was under-slept and under-hydrated. But at least I wasn’t cold. That’s because it's June and Oregon is in the middle of the closest thing we get to a heat wave (it was 92 in the valley today). I’m guessing the NW bowl has about another week before its no longer worth skiing (assuming the heat remains the same).

We were on the trail by around 5:00am.

Starting at the Patjen Lake Loop trailhead, we hiked along the trail as it skirts the south end of Big Lake.  Somehow in our early morning stupor we missed the cutoff for the PCT and ended up bushwacking half a mile (it seemed like a good idea at the time). For what it’s worth, the cutoff trail has a few logs across it where it connects with the Patjens Lake Loop trail. If you follow the Patjen Lake Loop trail away from the SE corner of the Big Lake for more than a few minutes, you’ve probably missed the cutoff.

After cruising up the wide, graded PCT for about a mile, we reached the cairn that marks the climbers trail (almost exactly at mile 2000 of the PCT). Note that there are actually two climbers trails: one that ascends the North ridge of Mt. Washington, and one that ascends to the base of the NW bowl. About 100 feet up from the cairn is a non-obvious fork in the trail (marked by a significantly smaller cairn). Left takes you up the ridge; right takes you directly into the bowl.

Not noticing the fork, Jake and I took the ridge trail, which we followed until we were within sight of the snowfield. We traversed across the silty bowl until we reached snow at about ~6000. We finally hit snow at around 7:30 am. The snow was a welcome relief because it meant we could finally ditch our hiking shoes and get our damn ski boots off our packs. The snow also seemed to deter the cloud of mosquitoes that had been following us since Big Lake.

Despite the warm temperatures, the snow had refrozen over night.  After a short break, we strapped on crampons and started booting up the snow toward the North ridge.

It seems the most common route up the NW bowl is to ascend the West ridge, and then traverse below the summit pinnacle to your desired line. However, given the limited snow in the bowl, Jake and I decided to just boot straight up the only line of skiable snow left. 

At this point, there is not much snow left in the bowl. The combination of recent rain followed by heat seems to caused a significant melt out over the past two weeks. However, we were able to find a continuous line of snow from the North ridge, just below the summit pinnacle, all the way to the upper basin of the NW bowl. The ski is not particularly long (~1000 feet) but would definitely be lapable if you got going early enough.

The pitch of the NW bowl is a consistent 40 degrees, getting higher as you approach the North ridge. About 150 feet below the ridge, shortly after we entered a chute of sorts, we encountered some rollovers that were well over 50 degrees. We had to front-point and use the picks of our axes to ascend to the ridge.

We got to the top just as the sun was cresting the
ridge. We had no intention of summiting, but after seeing the route to the summit close up, Jake and I agreed we would be back for the summit soon (5.0-5.3 climb/scramble).

Our plan was to sit in the sun and wait for the snow to reach primo corn status. However, our friends the mosquitoes rejoined us on the ridge. After a short break we had had enough. Jake and I deskinned and began our ski descent. The chute skied steep, but the snow was already soft enough to hold a good edge. Jake and I took turns skiing the chute, and we reconvened when it opened up into the bowl.

We leapfrogged down the rest of the bowl, and picked up our hiking shoes, where we had left them at the bottom of the bowl. We followed the snow through the thick stands of Fir trees below the bowl until it finally terminated (~5800). We threw our skis and boots back on our pack, and began the long, hot hike back to the car.

This was more of a ski-assisted hike than a real day of skiing. But, we got some excellent turns in on one of the most aesthetic mountains in Oregon. And we are skiing in June, so we’ll take what we can get.

Jake with the summit in the background

As we were skiing the bowl, a low mist moved in and hung just above the snow. It vanished as quickly as it came. 

Mt. Washington from Big Lake

Well deserved drinks and cool down period at the car