My paper crunch for the ICWSM deadline last month left me jonesing for a fun overnight ski trip where I could camp in a beautiful spot. Our January high pressure system gave me just the opportunity to do so, so I blew off work for a mellow midweek solo trip to climb Tomyhoi, a peak I’ve looked at many times but had never climbed before.
I had a relaxed start packing up in the morning, and left Seattle around 9:30, driving easily up the Chain Lakes road to the old Keep Kool trail at 3,000 feet. The road and forest was bone dry until just a few hundred feet down the road from the trailhead. I threw my skis on my pack and left the car at 12:45 in hiking boots, following the old trail without any trouble for about a thousand vertical feet before switching to skinning, getting my first glimpses of Shuksan with some wisps of clouds through the trees.
First views of Mount Shuksan through the forest.
I followed a few snowshoe and ski tracks along the buried trail to the flat basin below Yellow Aster Butte at ~5,300 feet where I stopped for lunch. It was a beautiful day with clouds blowing through some of the summits, but I was disappointed to see that the basin had a whole bunch of snowmobile tracks illegally inside the wilderness area. Lame.
Sled tracks through the basin below Yellow Aster Butte. Snowmobiles are not permitted in the Mount Baker Wilderness (nor any other wilderness).
I continued at a slow pace taking pictures up the ridge towards Tomyhoi as the clouds thickened and blew around me into a whiteout. With about 30 mins before sunset, I dropped my pack just below the 6,500 bump on Tomyhoi’s south ridge. As the fog swirled I got intermittent fleeting dreamlike views of Larrabee and Winchester and the Border Peaks, then just after sunset the fog quickly cleared and I had stunning views of Mount Baker and Shuksan in poking up over clouds in the valley. It was an lovely evening that chilled off quickly as I dug out a tent platform in the dark - my thermometer read 14 degrees Fahrenheit.
Shuksan above Yellow Aster Butte
The Border Peaks and Larrabee emerging from the fog
Yellow Aster Butte’s steep north side, with Goat rising out of the clouds behind.
Dusk over Mount Baker
Stars over American Border Peak, Larrabee, and Winchester
I got up half an hour before sunrise and enjoyed photographing the crystal clear morning, with lovely light on Baker and Damfino Peak, which looks pretty rugged from this angle.
Morning light on Larrabee
Sunrise behind the Pickets and Shuksan.
An appropriately dorky self portrait at camp, with Baker in the background.
I made breakfast then left camp with a light pack just before 9:00 and headed up towards Tomyhoi. I skinned for only a few minutes before ripping skins to ski for a few good steep turns down into the notch between the bump and the rest of the mountain. From there, it was easy skinning onto the broad plateau east of the summit. Rather than climbing over the false summit, as the standard summit route goes, I decided to try a more direct route, crossing the rib coming to the east of the false summit before skinning about 200 vertical feet of steep wind affected snow until close to the saddle between the summits, then rather than continuing to the saddle, I booted up a steep gully that deposited me onto the ridge just south of the true summit about 100 feet above the saddle. Very cool views all the way down into the Fraser valley and Abbotsford. I skinned about 200 vertical feet of quite steep wind affected snow until close to the saddle between the summits, then rather than continuing to the saddle I booted up a steep gully that deposited me onto the North ridge of the summit about 100 feet above the saddle. From the top of the gully, I left my skis, and 5 minutes of easy but exposed scrambling brought me to the true summit at 10:30. Stunning views in all directions, including a cool view of Damfino Peak, Mount Rexford, and even the skyscrapers of Vancouver, almost 70 miles to the west.
My skintrack up from the Tomyhoi Glacier towards the saddle between the false and true summits, with American Border Peak in the background.
The final scramble up to the summit of Tomyhoi, taken on the descent.
On the descent, I retraced my steps, and had fun skiing the gully back to the Tomyhoi Glacier, where with some traversing and a little shuffling I was able to ski all the way down to the notch near camp. I skinned out of the notch, then skied back to camp about 30 mins after leaving the summit. After packing up camp and eating lunch, I skied back to the basin below YAB and skinned up to the top of Keep Kool Butte for a more direct descent. There were nice views along High Divide, and the south face of Keep Kool Butte skied well with just a kiss of sun softening. The woods below were manky, and I intercepted my uptrack shortly before running out of snow. I grabbed my stashed hiking boots and walked baack to the car around 2pm. Great trip and I didn't see a soul the entire time (although once again the sled trackers were lame).