Mt Daniel Trip Report

[WenOut Staff]

Local Mike Rolfs posted this TR at Turns All Year which (currently has a far larger audience and a more devoted audience of year-round skiers than WenatcheeOutdoors. But not for long. As time passes, the WenatcheeOutdoorsForum will blow the socks off yonder sites. With Mike's permission, we grabbed his post and placed it here too -- where it belongs -- because Mike is one of us Central Washingtonians and we locals need to band together as brothers and sisters. Read on:

I loved reading Big Steve's account of his creative Mt. Daniel circuit,
http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing...?topic=25313.0
and while I didn't follow his ambitious route, I was inspired by his TR to ski the easy side of Mt. Daniel this weekend.

Here is the timeline;

3:45 AM left the house (Wenatchee area)
4:05 AM learned that the Wenatchee Safeway is no longer a 24 hour store**
5:30 AM started cursing the potholes on Forest Road 4330
7:00 AM finished cursing the potholes on Forest Road 4330
9:00 AM Peggy's Pond
11:00 AM East Peak summit
11:30 Done skiing
1:30 Car - and all the cursing with the potholes again
4:30 PM Home.

It was roughly 6 hours driving and 6-1/2 hours on the trail.

The coverage is prime! Sneakers to Peggy's Pond and skins from there (except I booted the steep parts - with crampons). I went up looker's right side of the cliff band above Hyass Glacier and continued up snow all the way to 20' below the summit of the East Peak. I didn't continue on to the middle and West Peaks, but if you wanted to from here you could scramble down south to intercept the normal traverse route. Skiing from the East Peak to below Peggy's Pond is continuous and mostly good surface conditions. Soup bowl sized sun cups with some runnels. The sun cups were just about right for footsteps on the up, but I have to admit that I got taken down once by a suncup to runnel one-two sucker punch.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i5...2/CIMG5437.jpg
East summit in the middle with my ski route passing below the spire on the right and then left around the cliff band

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i5...2/CIMG5436.jpg
The normal uphill route passes below a steeper chute just beyond Peggy's Pond. That chute is currently filled in and skiable. Sun cups made it less than perfect, but it was fun to ski a section I've looked at and wondered about.

The traverse around Cathedral Rock is mostly dry with three or four steep snow crossings that I should have gotten out my axe for, but didn't. On the traverse I met ski_photmatt and two of his friends. The skiing was good, but not quite good enough that I wanted to join them for another run. I hope Matt does a report. I'd like to see where his group skied.

I was by myself, so no ski video. But I did make up a song on the hike up and yes, I sang it to the camera, so here is the only video from the day... https://vimeo.com/46200252

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i5...2/CIMG5472.jpg
Finally... the potholes. The road is awful. I remarked on it's condition last year on my ski trip with Dan (which was super fun - he moved to Spokane, so no more ski trips with Dan. I miss him). Also, I notice that other people also mention the road in their reports. When the road is this bad, (and the picture is crappy because I was being bounced about in the seat of my truck) requiring "pay to park" is somewhat of an ethical question mark. My trip out was quicker because I employed the "skim over them" method, but either way, slow or fast, that road is terrible.




**as early as it was, in my partially awake state, it didn't occur to me that poking my finger between the outer doors at Safeway could be considered "braking in". The irritated guy inside the store said "Can I help you with something" to which I replied, "No, I'm headed to the bakery section" and then he explained that they were closed. Is this the twilight zone? Safeway doesn't close. "You pryed open the doors, didn't you?" he said. Man, that was embarrassing. Because pretty much he was right.

[mikerolfs]

Thanks for the intro, Andy. I promise to put my next adventure HERE first