With larger objectives still on the shelf until the firehose of precipitation abates, I spent two long half days exploring safer low elevation terrain at Gash.
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The Sweaty Gashes. The obvious avalanche path is below Gash proper.
The upper bowl and shoulder run are in the center of the photo.
The lower chutes still need to be skied. |
Day 1 I left work at noon on Friday and headed straight for Gash, parking at the end of the plowing. I approached the upper Sweaty Gash bowl in a pervasive mist. It blew out by the time I was nearing the drop in point, which helped mightily in deciphering the terrain. I was relieved to see the heavy new snow from the week sufficiently consolidated to keep avalanche conditions reasonable. I got things rolling by skiing a short chute into the main upper bowl, then took it all the way to the creek. The underlying snowpack was terribly rain saturated, but somehow it skied OK top to bottom. During the long climb back to the Gash ridge, I spotted a West facing tree lined gully and decided to ski it. The run ended up being more scrappy than desired, oh well. I stopped about 600 feet above the creek in order to save time for a third run. After climbing back out, I skied another good couloir into the same bowl just east of my first run. At this point it was 7 pm and time to head home. I fueled up, punched up my track for the last time, and rallied out to the car by dark. I had so much fun exploring that the drive home was spent scheming a return trip. About 7,600 vertical feet done in 7.5 hours.
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| Looking down the first run. |
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| Second scrappy run. |
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| Looking down the third run. |
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| Nice moderate terrain in the lower bowl. |
Day 2 With Leah out of town, I took a Wednesday off from work but only had ten hours between daycare drop off and pick up to work with. I returned to Gash, this time driving to the last big dry turnaround about a mile from the trailhead. I must have misread the forecast, because it had rained overnight instead of snowing, but I headed out into the mist anyway. I had planned on skiing the lowest North chute off Gash, but blew right by it in the mist. By the time I realized my error, I was already at the upper Sweaty Gash bowl. So, I skied a great run down the West shoulder which eventually dumps into the main bowl. I think this shoulder run is the best line in the cirque. I made a quick transition at Sweathouse creek, and started up a 2,000 foot couloir directly across the drainage. The climbing was quick with only one short section of booting, which allowed me to bang out the ascent in an hour. The couloir was a stunner. The upper half is a remarkably clean, and the bottom half skied well. Motivated, I made a quick transition and traversed up canyon to a less aesthetic but still fun looking 2,400 foot couloir. I was able to skin the whole thing, and topped out in good time. The day had warmed up enough that snow quality was poor, especially below rain line, but it was a great run. At this point in the day I had only three hours to be back in town for daycare pickup, so I downed some calories and started up my skin track from last Friday. The calories were enough to sustain a 50kish pace, and I topped out tired but with time to spare. The schuss out to the car was uneventful. 9,600 vertical feet, done in 6 hours, 40 minutes at a bright pace.
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Starting down the first run. My third run was in the curving gully with the
open V-shaped snowfield in the center of the photo. |
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| Looking across at the clean second run couloir. |
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| Looking down the clean second run couloir. |
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| Mid way up the third run with a very well filled in Gash proper in the background. |
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| the upper section of the third run. Better than it looks. |
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| Photo was taken in flip flops. Ski to car! |
Thoughts
This is a great zone, and I would love to know if any of the runs or name have been named. It is unusual to have enough snow to ski some of these lines, but when in condition, they are worth it. I think the shoulder run into the upper Sweaty Gash bowl is good and safe enough to mix into the normal Gash rotation.
On a health note, still coming back from the long pneumonia, but I am finally getting my mojo back.
At a minimum, I need to go back and ski two more of the North couloirs from Gash.
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