Big Four ski descent March 4, 2006


The Dry Creek route, mostly hidden. Taken from an attempt a few weeks earlier, stopped by horrible crusty snow conditions.

Friday afternoon Jason sent me an email asking if I wanted to do something up the mountain loop highway. With some warmish temps lately, I thought it would be better to try something with a higher start. It sounded like some other folks were going to the Tatoosh - that sounded nice. I said "maybe", and I would call him later.

That evening on the phone, he said why don't we go look at Big 4, and maybe ski something else nearby (the weather forecast didn't really seem to lend itself to skiing anything big). I really wasn't looking forward to getting up super early, and having to mess with a snowmobile. Hmm... "It's only a few miles, we don't need a sled, right?" "Nah, dude."

Ok, don't have to mess with the sled. "When should we meet? 5am at the park'n'ride?"

Looking up as we traverse east from the ice caves area. Skinning through piles of debris towards the lower headwall.

"Sounds good, (turning away from phone) Hey Josh, set the alarm for 4am".

Heard in the background on the phone: "Fuck!"

Apparently I wasn't the only one having motivation problems.

As we got ready at the road gate Saturday morning, one of those sketchy early morning vehicles arrived, turned around and left. Ok, unless you're going climbing or skiing up the road, or interested in breaking into some vehicles, there is NO reason for you to drive to the Mountain Loop highway gate at 6:30am.

I walked to the other side of the gate with my skis, and stepped into them. Then a shout from Jason: "Phil! We got a problem!".

I walked back to the car, and Jason showed me Josh's right tele binding - no heel piece. While Jason tried to humourously test if rigging some kind of string on the wire might help, the first (unspoken) thought in my mind was "too bad I have strap-on crampons, because otherwise we could use the heel throw from them".

What is a skiing TR without a whacked-out-blue-contast shot? The top of the Dry Creek couloir.

Someone asked if there was a gear shop nearby. Hmm... a telemark store open at 6:30am in Granite Falls? Yeah right. Jason kept asking if I knew someone "up here" who we could borrow a heel piece from. Um, ok, whatever. He seemed unconvinced that I did not.

After much swearing (and Josh getting pretty pissed at Jason, who loaded the car with the gear, but didn't notice the incomplete binding), we were about to get in the car, cancel the day, and head back to town. Then I said - "hey wait a sec, you guys have crampons too - are they clip-on?"

"Dude!" Within a few minutes, we had transfered Josh's crampon's heel throw onto his tele binding, and we were off.

It was snowing big heavy fat flakes as we skied along the trail to the ice caves. After reaching the opening at the base of the north face (3 miles from the car), we began traversing east around the mountain to reach the Dry Creek route. This went really smoothly, along snow-covered boulder fields.

Traversing the bench. Stuff that can fall on you as you're traversing the bench.

As we climbed the gully that circumvents the lower headwall, the snow let up, and the sun began to poke out through the fog. We wanted to get up out of this area before it started melting stuff off the cliffs above.

Climbing the "constriction" in the couloir. I guess this melts out pretty early in spring, but for us, it was our choice of powder, powder, powder, or runnely ice stuff, which Jason is heading to.

By the time we were in the main couloir, at 4000ft, we had 10 inches of powder on a firm base, and the weather was clearing. Josh had been breaking trail to this point, and I took over. The crust below slowly vanished, but now there was a layer of ball-bearing graupel about a foot beneath the surface. You couldn't really ask for a worse layer avalanche-wise. It was unbelievably slippery and deep (several inches of this stuff), and made for difficult skinning. Luckily here the snow on top was cohesionless fluff, and the angle not too steep. But what about up higher? We all doubted conditions would be safe enough to continue much higher.

Eventually the couloir steepened and we switched to booting. The graupel layer was gone. However, now we had bottomless powder... Jason took over trail-breaking here, and he was wallowing to his hips. Jesus! We're not going to make it. Finally, we suggested climbing the right-hand side of the couloir, where it might have gotten more sun. Brilliant! With firmer footing on a crust below, we started making good progress.

Wallowing our way over to the headwall at the top of the couloir.

An hour or so later, we stood below the steep headwall that leads to the notch between the main and south peaks of Big Four. Back to wallowing here. I wisely put my crampons on. Jason and Josh started up a firm runnel that breached the headwall. The slope was probably 50 degrees here, and started getting icy. Neither of the Hummels had their crampons on (it would have been a pain for Josh, since he'd have to transfer back the heel throw, and Jason (in the lead) wanted to make sure it was doable without 'pons). Now however, Jason was perched in a precarious spot, with the tips of his flexible teleboots just barely penetrating the slope, and two regular ski poles in hand.

Hummels climbing an icy groove. Looking down from the top of the headwall.

I caught up to him and retrieved his ice axe from his pack. Needless to say, he was relieved. I think he had been pretty gripped. I continued up cruiser hard snow/ice - easy and quick when you're wearing crampons, and have a whippet in one hand, and an ice axe in the other. I tried to make foot holes the best I could for the Hummels to follow.

Up higher, I angled left to the summit ridge on easier terrain. My 'pons were balling up like mad on this sunlit slope, which make it kind of sketchy. At this point, I was pretty nervous about the ski down, and didn't feel like continuing to the summit. I think Josh was with me on this one, but lucky for us Jason decided to push on by angling right, and we followed.

Up higher things looked better. We took a short break, and Jason scouted ahead, reporting back "Dude, it's a joke! We got it!"

Final traverse to the summit has some big exposure.

Moving again, it didn't seem quite so much like a joke to me. Still being the only one wearing crampons (wtf?) I went first for the final slope. It really wasn't all that steep (less than 45 degrees), but it was quite firm, and extremely exposed - I was very nervous, every step committing myself to a more scary ski back down.

Jason topping out on the summit ridge. I suspect that the fresh snow was just from the previous night and the morning. It hadn't really yet been affected by wind. It was just fluff on boilerplate.

Once on the ridge, I shouted back "the summit is ours!". A few minutes later, we stood on top.

Flattish summit area. Too bad we didn't bring our cross-country skis!

Suprisingly, the summit area consists of gentle undulating terrain.

Jason and Josh putting on their skis (or maybe they were trying to tell me something?) Easy turns off the top.

The wind suddenly rose up and cooled us down. We didn't want to spend much time up here. Soon we were clicked in to our bindings and standing on top of the traverse I had led 20 minutes earlier. Jason went across first, doing it fairly quickly, and shouted back for us to be really careful. The snow on top was grabby. I went next.

My edges hardly bit into the ice under the 2 inches of powder. They seemed to have almost no hold. I looked down at the empty space below me. A 600ft plunge over cliffs awaited anyone who lost their grip.

"Take it real slow!", shouted Jason. I descended 20 feet, "securing" myself to the slope by digging my whippet in, and bashing my edges until I perceived a smidgen of purchase. Had I known it was this bad, I would have removed my skis and downclimbed. Finally I got a clear shot across. I started the traverse, my edges scraping seemingly helplessly on the hard crust, and made it across to the deeper snow on the other side. Whew! Holy shit, glad that's over.

Josh leading the way down the south ridge just below the tense traverse.

We waited a few minutes for Josh to cross (which he seemed to do quite well and securely). Now we had to descend along the ridge line. There were a few steep drop-offs with exposure, down which we had to side step. None quite as bad as the top section though.

Jason in the one place we were able to crank turns between the summit and the top of the couloir. One, two, three! Aw darn, too steep and icy again. We're heading to the hidden gully in the background, hoping for deeper snow.

Another traverse awaited us, with a steep entrance. Similar to up top, but with less exposure, and slightly better snow. After this, the slope let up enough for us to be able to crank 2 or 3 turns. Then it steepened again, on top of the headwall. We were at the same level as the narrow gully that led to the col atop the couloir, edges clinging to a few inches of powder on ice. Could we traverse into it? There was a good chance it had deep snow. The headwall which steepened convexly below us almost certainly did not.

Jason committed to the gully. If the traverse were to cliff out, he would be, to put it lightly, quite fucked. Backing up or turning around on this slope was not really an option.

He gave us an indication that it was good to go. Once I was in Jason's tracks that he carved through the crust, it was much easier, and I soon caught up to him at the top of the gully. I waited.

"I'm standing here for a reason!", he said.

Here's the reason he was standing there.

I secured myself and took out my camera. He made a steep turn, and found deepening powder. He disappeared around the bend, and we heard him shout "It's so fucking deep man!!!".

I cut into the gully and promply dove the tip of my uphill ski into the snow. I let out a little scream as I toppled over, but managed to prevent myself from falling. At this point, it was more humourous than dangerous, as due to the deep snow, I could probably fall down the gully and be fine. Nonetheless, it shook me up a little. I dug my tip out and make a turn. The first few turns were "scrapey", then it was deep powder. Real deep, and I think I even got a face shot. I felt waves of relief wash through my body. Ahhhhhhhh! It was the bliss of the scary skiing being over, combined with the 2000ft of beautiful powder laid out below me.

Josh getting third tracks in the gully.

There's not much more to say about the couloir, other than we could not have asked for better conditions.

Jason skiing down a rib near the constriction. This was a fun section of the couloir, since it was pretty steep and deep.

Josh went right of the rib and popped out the other side.

Josh in the powder. Josh still in the powder.

The traverse back across the bench and down the lower gully went with no incident, except for when Jason skied into an icy avy runnel in the flat light, and slowly but uncontrollably slid down one hundred feet until he hit a patch of debris.

Jason sliding down an icy avy runnel. We turned Big Four into a ski resort!

We stopped for a long break in the alder fields below the lower headwall. We were tired. We made it back to the car at sunset.