I’ve always wanted to ski the Chiwakum Traverse, a classic south-to-north traverse of one of the subranges of the Central Cascades, just north of the Enchantments, and an area I’ve never explored. The weather forecast two weeks ago was marginal, but I was fiending for an overnight traverse, so I was thrilled when Jaclyn suggested that we give it a shot. We packed more warm clothes than usual and set off, dropping Jac’s car at Cascade Meadows and heading up the Icicle for our start.
The weather on Saturday was beautiful but a bit windy, with a storm and a few inches of snow supposed to arrive that night. The sunshine lifted our spirits and we hiked up the Chatter Creek trail with skis on our packs. We crossed the creek just as we encountered snow, around 4,400 feet, and engaged in just the right amount of slow posthole wallowing before the snow was consistent enough to skin. Once on our skis, we made quick progress up the valley, and soon popped out into the slide paths below Grindstone Peak.
The weather still looked great as we approached treeline in the Chatter Creek valley.
A touch of shenanigans were all it took to climb up to the ridge crest and gain access to the Index Creek drainage, but we couldn’t help but notice that clouds were building rapidly.
Jac, fully loaded beneath building clouds, crossing the ridge into the Index Creek drainage.
In the half-hour it took to skin over to Lake Edna, a squall came in and it started snowing moderately hard, with crappy visibility and gusty winds. At the lake, the wind was positively blasting, so we set about excavating a proper tent platform and wall in the shelter of a few scrawny trees.
The best part of hanging out with Jaclyn is that she always has a smile on her face, no matter how bad the weather.
We both hoped that the squall might pass, but as it started to get dark, it showed no sign of clearing. We were in high spirits, and entertained ourselves by skinning out onto the lake and bashing a hole in the ice to find liquid water, saving ourselves from the pain of having to melt snow. As sun set, we skinned the few hundred feet up to the saddle below Cape Horn, where the wind was truly indescribably powerful. I watched hunkered from behind a rock as Jac, perhaps less dense than I, was literally blown over by a gust. We retreated our tent to make dinner, enhanced by the entire bag of fresh spinach that Jac had brought (“gotta get that protein!”)
Harvesting drinking water from Lake Edna.
It snowed on and off all night, and we awoke to a whiteout and a few inches of fresh snow on the tent. At least the wind had abated a bit. We made breakfast and packed up as we contemplated bailing. We were both confident we could safely continue, but it seemed likely that the skiing would be mediocre and we wouldn’t really be able to see anything, which for me was what I was most excited about. Jaclyn, who I’m pretty sure will enthusiastically declare just even the most atrocious ski conditions “soo great!” was more excited to press on - I appreciate her making me feel like a curmudgeon.
We skinned back up to the Cape Horn saddle as we waffled, where Jac “accidentally” dropped her pole down the far side in order to have an excuse to rip skins and ski to retrieve it. “This is so awesome!” she yelled as I watched (and listened) to her ski refrozen windblown crust. After she retrieved her pole, my curmugeon-ness prevailed, and we decided to head back to my car. (I’m sure the fact that I had my mountain bike with me, and Jaclyn didn’t, had nothing to do with it.)
Jac retrieving her “accidentally” dropped pole.
The skiing back down past Lake Edna was variable, with zero to three inches of fresh snow on top of crust, but Jac's stoke was still high. We reached the ridge above Chatter Creek at 10:45, and, feeling badly about being no fun, I suggested we drop packs and take a bonus lap down a thousand feet to the meadows to the north. I set the skin track back out to retrieve our packs, then we dropped onto the south side of the ridge and skied mank down to Chatter Creek.
Skiing below Lake Edna.
Climbing up to the ridge dividing Chatter and Index Creeks.
We skied along our uptrack down the valley, pushing in a few places, before we started to run out of snow. Relishing my one and only opportunity to embrace the snow quality (or lack thereof) more than Jac, I made it through a few hundred vertical feet more of shitfuck exit shenanigans before tapping out and strapping my skis to my pack. We cruised down the trail in light rain to my car, bringing only a few stowaway ticks with us. (Jac drowned hers, and I incinerated mine on the electric burner of Matt’s stove.)