MT Adventures: Mission traverse on skis, V. 4

The Mission traverse with Leah was a dream come true, and my best ski day of the 2019/2020 ski season.

I was confident that we could complete the route with a reasonable time and safety buffer, and when conditions aligned, we made it happen. Leah activated her day care finding magic, and I planned out the route in detail, and dialed in a gear plan, and ran the bike shuttle the previous night to ease the early start. We met properly early on the outskirts of St. Ignatius, parked at the first sign of deep snow, and were trudging to Saint Mary reservoir at 4 am. The walk to the trailhead was uneventful, and we made easy progress on foot, transitioning to skinning shortly before first light. The climb to Saint Mary's had quite a bit of tricky, firm skinning, but the sunrise was spectacular, conditions were going to be fast, and we summited in high spirits.

Done with the dark and ready for a perfect day.

The Northeast run down Saint Mary was quick, and the climb back to the crest was easy enough. I was definitely dragging a little, but was confident that I had enough energy to continue with the traverse. We made reasonable progress across the plateau, and up to the summit ridge just South of Mountaineer. I wanted to ski the big Northwest snowfield below Mountaineer from the top, and we wasted quite a bit of time slowly working through tricky ridge top climbing to gain the top of the snowfield. The skiing was firm, smooth, and quite enjoyable.

Climbing out of Grizzly lake with Lowry behind.

Exposed climbing to gain the Mountaineer summit ridge.

Dreamy cruising.

Next up was the South face of Shoemaker. I had planned on soft snow at this point in the day, but it was still firm, and I was fairly concerned about climbing it without crampons. Employing the tried and true "go until you can't anymore" tactic, I was able to at least get a sliver of boot into the snow for each step, all the way up to the crest. Next up was nice settled powder on the mellow ski run to Lake of the Clouds. I was feeling a little better at this point, and couldn't stop reveling in the day, the mountains, the perfect conditions, and sharing it all with Leah. After a short break, we made the easy climb to the sneak gully to Icefloe lake.

Last few steps to the ridge below Shoemaker.

Great snow on the Sunrise glacier.

Skiing to Lake of the Clouds.

Pondering the impending climb to McDonald before dropping into the sneak gully.

Leah skiing powder in the sneak gully.

The ski run was also excellent, with nice settled powder. We took a longer break at the lake. We were both tired, but we were right on my time estimate, so we headed up McDonald. We had some trouble efficiently climbing re-freezing snow on the East face, but still got the long climb done in good time. I liked climbing the East face better than the South and will probably use it as the standard route for future outings. After a mini celebration on McDonald, we skied the South face in perfect firm corn and started whipping our way out to Ashley lakes. The skiing to the lakes was remarkably good. The lakes were well frozen, so we quickly skated across them. We eventually ran out of snow not far below the lakes, and had some adverse-ish walking on the snow covered summer trail. Soon enough, we had climbed out to the end of the road and took one last long break to fuel up, switch to approach shoes, and drink the last of our water. We cut a bunch of switchbacks, so the hike out to our car in the valley was quick enough. We arrived right at dark, tired in all the right ways.

I was so happy.