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Touring Central Cascades

Cannon Mountain, Cannon Couloir

Andrew and I were liking what we were seeing in the forecast for Saturday so we split for the east side to check one off the list. Cannon Couloir has all the essentials that make up a classic Washington ski tour, a long road approach on skis, an endless bushwhack, a ptarmigan. Turns out we just took a wrong turn and both the bushwhack and the ptarmigan could have been avoided. But the weather stayed positive and the snow stayed soft.

We left Bridge Creek Campground at 7:15am with continuous snow from the parking lot, and split the road up to 3000ft. Rather than waiting for the creek to meet the road, we dropped a few hundred feet to meet the creek for a questionable crossing and a nasty fight with every known plant native to the area in some really steep terrain. That was a bit discouraging and added an extra 40 minutes on to our total time spent in the mountains, however once we got back on track around 4000ft it was much easier going and fairly straight forward from there.

Cannon Mountain Couloir

We took the overgrown service road for a short time at about 4500 ft but bailed on it when the brush got too thick for it to be an efficient way to travel. From then on we more or less followed the ridge up to 6500ft where we took a short lunch and transitioned to ski crampons for an icy bit of terrain before the snow got deep again in the burned trees. From there we were touring through some real powder until the last 100 ft where the crampons made one more appearance.

Cannon Mountain Couloir

At 2:30pm we topped out just as the weather was clearing and the wind was dying down. Dropping into the couloir the snow was packed but soft after that deep turns were the norm with some hardpack thrown in just so you don’t have too much fun and the occasional icy patch to keep you honest.

At 6000ft we hung left and traversed out through some pretty wet snow that had seen some high freezing levels quite a few of wet slides. At 4500ft we made it back to the ridge where we were able to thank the dudes in front of us for setting a good amount of the skin track.

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thanks dudes!

Back at the car by 430 we passed quite a few snow shoers, sleders, ski mountaineers, bird watchers and the like. It really is a true recreational area and that’s what makes Washington classic!

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