McClellan Butte

So Lucas and I decided a short, fun outing was best because of his need to defend .... well.... next Thursday! Well, we decided on skiing McClellan Butte. 5:00 came and I was rip roaring ... we needed an early start to get back for "work." So we parked just off the interstate and headed out. We had a "description" of what we wanted to do but the gist was: 1) drive I90. 2) get off at McClennan Butte exit. 3) Park at trail head. 4) climb with the NW shoulder as your destination. 5) ski down. 6) drink beer back close to Seattle. Well, I made (6) up, but it seemed fitting. At the trailhead, disoriented, we met some guys that pointed us in the right direction and in turn we gave them some tracks to get through the mid part of the mountain (they were post holing with boots the whole way)

So we headed up, me skinning on the skis (pic left) and lucas on snowshoes packing in his snowboard (bindings still in the shop; pic right). I didn't envy him. Per our descriptive guide, we accidentally started climbing a little too early. To our defense we wanted to try to hit the summit, whereas the NW route cliffs out 300 feet below the summit. mushy, wet condition turned into some newly felled powder on top of a crusty base. This soon turned into 6 inches and then 18 inches of powder! We got about 800 feet from the summit and things got pretty steep and sketchy for me and my skins. We tried to stay in the glades and boot it but with no pro and turnaround time coming we decided to dig a platform in the steep slope for a late lunch and turnaround (Pic from platform on left). While we wanted the summit, it was just time to hit the slopes that we had climbed. There was no sense tempting fate with the powder that lay below us.

After lunch Lucas started down on his snowboard ... it sounded like he was relieved to have it of his back. The first few pitches were tough, being steep and "warm ups" for both of us. but below them was pure powder. We had about 1500 feet of knee (+) deep powder to ski before hitting the wet slush through which we would have to navigate. All the way down both lucas and I were giddy giddy giddy. Even though we were cursing the hike up and what lay in front of us (in terms of the crap out), we both agreed that the fresh, untouched powder was worth it and so much more. Cursing the wet snow and wet snow bombs, we eventually made it back to the car exhausted... but loving every second of it. We twisted each other's arms to end up at Rogue Issaquah. We had a beer and were so hungary added some appetizers. 2 beers later we were cruising back to seattle .... lucas to work (L, how much did you accomplish?) and me to grab my stuff for a top division soccer game. It's a good thing I saved all that energy, yeah....

Thinking back on it, that was the best snow of the year, maybe ever. It was only one trip down but it was worth the energy. On the way back I almost drove off I90 looking at our lines ... and scheming on all the other possible lines out there.........