Rainy Pass, North Cascades, May 8/9, 1999.

The plan was to ski into the area around Black Peak, and maybe climb it, or find some good sloped to make turns on. Gambrelli and Damion flew in from Utah, and her brother and his friend Rob came down from Vancouver. We arrived in Rainy Pass (North Cascades highway) late Saturday morning, and luckily found a pullout plowed at the Lake Anne trailhead. The highway had only opened for the season 3 days before, so we were worried that they hadn't had time to plow trailheads.

The weather looked promising... light intermittent flurries, mixed in with bright sunshine. Great views all around.

G getting ready:

G's brother Grusky, and his friend Rob, and the 'stoner-mobile':

Damion, the lone American on this trip: (as you will see, he likes to stick out his tongue).

The snow was probably 10 feet deep at the trailhead, so there was no chance of actually trying to follow the Lake Anne trail. The forest was open though, so travel wasn't a problem. Within an hour, we had reached Lake Anne, the first of 3 lakes en route to Black Peak. We were pretty much set on at least travelling to the next lake, because it looked like it offered much more ski terrain. So we skinned up another six or seven hundred feet to Heather Pass, and the beginning of the traverse down to Lewis Lake. The ski up to the pass involved a lot of traversing, and Grusky was on snowshoes, with snowboard on his back... not the ideal equipment for this kind of travel. We relaxed on top of the pass and checked out the traverse while we waited for him.

I skied over and took a look at the route down to Lewis Lake. The traverse itself didn't look too steep. It was sort of on a bench, below the steep north face of Corteo, and above a large cliff band. It was the steep, snowy, corniced face that loomed above that had me worried. However, the temperature was well below normal, so I figured we'd be safe traversing underneath. When it was time to go, Damion took a look, said "piece of cake", and skied off.

Damion starting the traverse:

Damion a little bit further along the traverse. The red dot is Lewis Lake:

I was the next to go. As I was skiing along, I noticed that there was really no place that was safe. You were in danger the whole way across. Most of the traverse was through avalanche debris, but it was quick. It was also steeper that it looked though... probably about 35 degrees at most, but you were above big cliffs. If any avalanche that hit you didn't kill you, the cliffs it would carry you over sure would. A minute or so later, I arrived next to Damion, who had stopped at the only reasonably safe spot along the way. Rob was next to come. By this time, the sun was out in full force, shining on the face above, and I was beginning to get worried.

Finally, Gambrelli and Grusky began the traverse. Being on a snowboard, Grusky wasn't able to traverse as horizontally as the rest of us, so he descended more. This meant he had to remove his snowboard, and climb back up some more in order to finish the traverse. All the while in danger. Gambrelli on the other hand, wasn't too used to skiing through chunky debris, and fell several times.

Then we heard the first avalanche... it was about a hundred yards further along the traverse. A cloud of snow moved down the mountain, and spilled out onto the bench.

You can just barely see the "dust" settling from the first avalanche, in the center of the picture:

We yelled at G and G to hurry up. They hadn't seen the avalanche. As we watched them continue, ever-so-slowly, Damion and I saw another slide come down only about a hundred feet behind Gambrelli!

The black dots are Gambrelli and Grusky:

There were some tense moments, but finally they made it, and we all headed to Lewis Lake. We found a sheltered spot in the trees and set up camp.

Later that afternoon, we headed up the valley towards Black Peak. The snow unfortunately was very crusty and difficult, as it was now in the shade. Even a north-facing ridge didn't produce any powder.

A view of clouds on Black Peak in the early evening:

The traverse, from just above Lewis Lake. We came from that forested saddle in the background:

A view of the north face of Corteo Peak from our campsite. The fresh slide debris in the center of picture came down during the traverse:

We claimed the area around Black Peak for Canada:

Our alpine start Sunday morning: 10am.

The next day, in the late morning, we headed to Wing Lake, beneath the east face of Black Peak.

Gambrelli (you're supposed to be free-heeling, not high-heeling!):

Fashion supermodel G. Tower mtn in the background:

A closer view of Tower (on the left). The black mountain peeking out in the background is The Needles.

Gambrelli and Grusky headed back to camp on the developing corn snow, while Damion, Rob and I decided to ski something around Wing Lake. We pondered a long time about which slopes to ski, and finally made our choice, based on the fact that our ascent route didn't take us under any large steep snow-laden cornice-y faces, and it looked like we might get to ski some steep powder.

Rob and Damion at our high point, Black Peak in the background:

Damion was first to go down. The first section he skied was really nice powder, and he made joyful sounds. A few encouraging yelps emerged from somewhere in the distance... no doubt the group of climbers that were also in the area, but who we had never actually seen (we only saw their tracks and their tents). Damion stopped just above a cliff band, jumped a small cornice, and skied down the chute.

I was second down the chute... it was steep, and I was a bit hesitant, because of the angle and general "big mountain butterflies", but I got some nice turns in powder. Rob took the rear.

Rob skiing the powder in the chute:

A view of the slope we skied from lower down (Damion's tracks on the right).

The remaining 1200ft ski back to camp was relaxing, on nice corn snow.

Damion with his tongue out. I swear I'm going to make a coffee-table book of skier's expression when they are skiing:

Sunday turned out to be a nice day. The ski back to camp:

Relaxing in the sun before packing up and heading out:

We took a different route back to the highway, straight down from Lewis Lake. This was much steeper than any section on our approach hike (it took one of only two gullies that breached the cliff band below Lewis Lake), but seemed like a safer choice. It took longer than we thought though, with a little bushwhacking once we got close to the highway, and then another mile of highway snowbank skiing to reach the cars.

On our way out via Lewis Creek.