FEATURED POST

When the undisputed King of the Cascades Fred Beckey penned “Challenge of the North Cascades”, he had obviously been in the mountains many days. Enough days to state that “In the mountains you are sometimes invited, sometimes tolerated, and sometimes told to go home”.

Our well intended photo shoot for Outdoor Research, which was to take us around the Fitzsimmons and Spearhead Range in the Southern BC Coast Range, seemed ill-fated. Some of our athletes got injured a few days before the trip and now the forecast called for arctic temperatures that would render video and photo assignments a real chore.

It is easy to loose momentum when plans need to be changed for the third time. “Let’s just do it another time” seems like a very inviting option – and sometimes it is the best option.  In our case, it was not. We certainly did not seem invited to the Spearhead Traverse. We might have been tolerated out there, as long as we were willing to deal with the 20degrees below Fahrenheit temperatures that had been forecasted.  After another weather check, we concluded that we had made the 5 hour journey into BC to get into position for a trip that actually made most sense in our own backyard.

Snoqualmie Pass. Hmmm. Not very exotic… But after all it was our backyard and here we seemed invited. Cold, but acceptable temps, heaps of fresh powder, excellent stability, and a brilliant forecast. The crew was set to go at that moment and chances were good that we would not be able to coordinate everyone’s schedule again in the near future.

There was still that lingering hesitation about the actual destination. But I was confident. The immediate terrain west and north of Snoqualmie Pass is quite rugged and has surprised many. And so I met up with well known photographer Grant Gunderson, fellow Pro Guiding Service guide Erica Engle and Outdoor Research’s Keith Karlick at my gear shop in North Bend, WA.  Keith handed out the pertinent garments for the shoot, we went through a final gear check, and off we were to Snoqualmie Pass.

Cold temperatures awaited us in the parking lot and we were glad that it was not any colder. What followed is exactly what mountain memories are made of. I won’t bore you with stories of cold feet, insane views, beautiful touring, steep couloirs, relentless blower pow, sweating and freezing at the same time or the mediocre instant coffee that seemed pretty good in a frost covered tent.

I will say this though; Outdoor Research’s immediate backyard is amazing. Snoqualmie Pass’s terrain is rugged, transition-intensive, spectacular, and accessible. The reason why it has found a following over the years is that it demands respect. You can keep learning here. You won’t get bored.  Certain tours around here get done only once or twice a year because they are simply too committing and too big. Others are just hard enough and so spectacular that they have turned into classics. They add real value to the Seattle ski tourer’s life. You can summit over a dozen ski touring peaks here as day objectives, many more than that if you are willing to sleep a night outside.  I know very few people who have summited them all.

There are not a lot of places like this backyard where you can go and ski a wild couloir in the morning, go to work in the afternoon, then go out for a great dinner by the beach with your spouse in the evening before heading to the Opera (not that I have been in the Opera lately…)

So there we were on Snoqualmie Pass, touring and skiing around in perfect snow, perfect stability and visibility. We were invited – clearly. Not much thought was wasted on the Spearhead Traverse anymore. We spent a few days reconnecting with an old friend we thought we knew so well already. Similar to when you miss a flight and end up stopping over at a friend’s house because he is there, there’s the glaringly realization is that your old friend is actually a very cool person and, darned, you really should try to keep in touch.

The Spearhead Traverse is just another great place that we did not get to this time. Because the mountains are in charge, we ended up hanging out with our old buddy Snoqualmie Pass. What great get-together.