Tye Lake Tour

Yesterday I ski toured to Tye Lake north of Stevens Pass.  Not only was it the most successful ski tour (most miles covered and most vertical feet of descent) of my short alpine touring history, it was the best snow I’ve skied in Oregon or Washington in the past 18 years.  No joke.  I have not skied in such dry and deep powder in ages.

I left Seattle around 5:45am and met up with a few other Mountaineers at the Sultan P&R and made it to the Stevens Pass parking lot by 7:45.  After getting set and completing out beacon checks we hit the trail by 8:15.  We climbed 1200ft up Skyline Ridge, across the lake, and made it to the saddle overlooking Nason Creek by 9:30am.  At the saddle we dug two quick pits to check the snow stability.  Our pits confirmed the forecast.  There was about 30 inches of fresh, dry snow was well-bonded with the January/February Crust.  (There was some movement (Q2/Q3 movement) at the intersection of the two layers. (at compression 27))  The snow was so dry it didn’t really form a cohesive slab.

Skinning out of Nason Creek

 

We descended through some old growth trees about 500ft to Nason Creek.  The snow was loose and deep.  Once we reached the creek, we transitioned for our W approach to the ridge overlooking Tye Lake.  Our route finding was not the best and we spent a bit of time battling thickets and steep dry snow.  As a result, several of us struggled to skin up and fell frequently.  At 4900ft, we finally broke into meadows and glades where our skin track was much easier. Once we got to the saddle, we headed southwest towards Sky Mountain and gained elevation almost until we reached the pinnacles below the summit (5200ft).  We transitioned to downhill mode and slid between a cliff band onto the north face of Sky Mountain.

Descent into Tye Lake

 

The descent to the lake was amazing.  The snow covered boulder field made for a wonderful ski run where all six of us were able to choose our own line.  Beyond the Tye Valley you could see Glacier Peak. The 600ft of powder left smiles on all of our faces.  After lunch basking in the sun at the lake, we climbed back towards the notch near Sky Mountain following our ski tracks and decided the previous run was so great we would make another lap.  This time our tracks were set a little further to the west and re-used our skin tracks back up.  This is why people ski tour.

Lunch at the lake

Ski tracks down

Skin track out of the lake

The view north

We returned to the notch at 2pm and made a transition to descend into Nason Creek once more.  We dropped about 400ft and then climbed back to our first transition point on Skyline Ridge.  The trees were more tightly spaced on the way down to the creek.  The snow on the south facing slope on the drop back to the cars was much different than the north facing and tree protected slopes we skied all day.  The sun had melted the snow over the past two clear days.  By 3pm the surface had refrozen making the skiing a little more challenging.  We skied the left (eastern) edge of the service road down the parking lot.  The trees were pretty close together and a little difficult to navigate.  If I had to do it again, I would skin to the top of the peak to the ENE of Skyline Lake and ski the glades down the car.