I'm lucky to have a favorite mountain. I wish everybody could. Her name is Ruth.
[Some photos in this post were taken during trips on prior years]
I didn't really need the 4:45 alarm. On a mountain day, I'm always up. The important thing is to remember to shut off the alarm before I leave the room, so it doesn't wake up the rest of the family. Make tea, have breakfast, recheck a thing or two, wonder where the rest of the crew is. They arrive and off we go.
We weren't quite sure whether the road would be free of snow all the way to the trailhead. Paul had been there a few weeks before and had walked more than a mile of road through some pretty deep drifts. But it's been warm, and the melt has come very early this year. Soon enough we pulled in, chatted with a few other skiers, and set off walking with our gear on our backs.
The start of the trip to Ruth is the long, long walk through the valley. Luckily it's spectacular, pretty much every step of the way.
One part of skiing in the Cascades is trying to figure out the exact best time of year for the trip. The sweet spot we sought this time was: late enough to get all the way to the trailhead, late enough that the big spring avalanches were done, but early enough so there still was plenty of snow, to ski all the way down into the valley from the top.
You can't always get it exactly right, but on Saturday we did pretty well.
It's a funny time of year, in between full summer, when the trail is easy to follow, and winter, when it doesn't exist under the snow. We found ourselves in several places pondering whether to follow the snow or stick with the trail, assuming we could find it again.
Soon enough, it was all snow. We had arrived at the alpine.
From there, it's work but it's all just fun, in some of the best surroundings anywhere. And then at last, the summit.
How lucky were we. Views, and warm enough for a leisure lunch and even a nap for Phil, who got bored of hearing Paul and I talking.
Then time to rip on down.
Should we try to ski all the way down to the valley? Would there be continuous snow?
As it turned out, there was.
So, we elected to ski just as far as we could along the bottom, avoiding some of the trail we had walked on the way up.
When the alpine is melting out, it is just so cool.
Streams run under the snow then pop out into waterfalls.
Of course, Ruth won't let you go home without a little bit of adventuring.
And it seems that the trail always tacks on an extra mile or two on the way back, just to mess with you. I haven't been able to prove it yet ...
The mountains are not the only places to find a peaceful time with friends, away from all of those great things that imprison us during most of our modern lives. But, it's an excellent choice when you can do it.
Thanks to Phil and Paul for a great way to get month 79 in a row of skiing here in our great northwest.
References
Note on Safety: When you go to the mountains, you have to be really, really serious about staying safe. If you have any uncertainty at all, you can easily find classes or guides, all well worth the money. This post skips any discussion of the very substantial safety planning we did, which included route and gear choices, considering hazards like avalanches, crevasses, and the overall unpredictable nature of the mountains.
For more about backcountry skiing in the Pacific Northwest, Turns All Year is a great site.
Several photos courtesy of Sam Lozier