Tonga Ridge 2/1/15
Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2015 7:13 pm
This winter sucks, but I'm not sitting around at home waiting for snow to never come.
First we went up the Whitepine Creek Road a few miles east of Stevens Pass summit. First few miles were plowed with dusted over water ice. Get out and you just fall over (to think, before we left in the morning we were joking about how we were going into the mountains and nobody brought crampons). Those fun conditions where you spontaneously do a 180 spin right out of nowhere. My friend winched over the plow berm while I aired down and drove over. Easy snow conditions from there up to the trailhead.
Then we went up Tonga Ridge. No snow until about 3000ft. Then it is icy rutted driving. I drove for minutes at a time without even putting my hand on the wheel, drives itself through the ruts.
Turned uphill, then turned uphill again on unbroken overgrown trail to the highest point up there. There was a hard pack layer a few inches down that I was able to float on for the most part, but when you broke through you fell into feet of faceted sugar and it was nearly impossible to get back on top even winching out.
IMG_20150201_150544
IMG_20150201_152722
IMG_20150201_161923
IMG_20150201_163538
Earlier in the weekend tried to climb Rainier, didn't summit though.
IMG_20150131_085721
First we went up the Whitepine Creek Road a few miles east of Stevens Pass summit. First few miles were plowed with dusted over water ice. Get out and you just fall over (to think, before we left in the morning we were joking about how we were going into the mountains and nobody brought crampons). Those fun conditions where you spontaneously do a 180 spin right out of nowhere. My friend winched over the plow berm while I aired down and drove over. Easy snow conditions from there up to the trailhead.
Then we went up Tonga Ridge. No snow until about 3000ft. Then it is icy rutted driving. I drove for minutes at a time without even putting my hand on the wheel, drives itself through the ruts.
Turned uphill, then turned uphill again on unbroken overgrown trail to the highest point up there. There was a hard pack layer a few inches down that I was able to float on for the most part, but when you broke through you fell into feet of faceted sugar and it was nearly impossible to get back on top even winching out.
IMG_20150201_150544IMG_20150201_152722IMG_20150201_161923IMG_20150201_163538Earlier in the weekend tried to climb Rainier, didn't summit though.
IMG_20150131_085721