Comeback Corn

Spring skiing has been challenging in the PNW for the last few years. We have experienced a combination of low snowpack, stormy weather, and heat waves. Rarely have we gotten the mild temperatures and freeze / thaw cycles necessary for cultivating the corn that we are so famous for. This season has seen more of the same – a foot or two of fresh snow followed by a heat wave, mushy snow, and then more precipitation. Spring, which used to be my favorite season for skiing, has lately been quite disappointing.

I was determined to get in one good day of spring skiing before the end of my season, and I spotted a weather window that promised a solid overnight refreeze and moderate temps. Our snowpack is decent up high, but the mid elevations are mostly melted out to late spring conditions. Meanwhile, the snowpack has remained persistently wintry. This created challenges planning a tour – most of my ideas were either too melted out or simply impractical with our immature, unconsolidated snowpack. While scouring maps, I only found one (non volcanic) idea that made much sense: Ruth and Icy. It stayed high enough that there was a sufficient snowpack and followed the sun to ski the correct aspects at each point in the day.

Wyatt, John, and Dylan joined me driving up to the Hannegan Pass Trailhead the night before. We started around sunrise, hiking up the primo trail. Wildflowers were blooming and we did not even have to touch snow until we entered the camping basin at about 4700 ft. From there, it transitioned suddenly to full snow coverage. Perfect! The wonderful transition from dry to snow reminded me of skiing Vesper Peak in the spring.

The snow was frozen solid, so we put on crampons and booted up towards Ruth, generally following the summer trail.

We decided to just keep booting all the way to the summit of Ruth. It is so nice when you get a strong refreeze like this.

Ruth is definitely one of the best summit views in the North Cascades. I had never been here until the Mineral High Route last summer. Somehow, it was Wyatt’s first time, and he was very excited to see the legendary Nooksack Cirque.

It was not even 9 AM, but it seemed the east aspect of Ruth was already ripe for harvest. We took a long run down its rolling east face, tasting the best corn I have had in Washington in years! It felt good to be back.

We flipped around 5800 ft, where the slope steepened into waterfalls, and skinned back up to the summit of Ruth again.

From the summit, we skied down a cool knife edge snow ridge before dropping west to get to the south couloir of Ruth. John, the first to arrive, announced it too was ripe for harvest. This little finger of snow was 40-45 degrees, maybe 20 feet across, and super fun to ski!

We had to do some traversing and booting to get over to the glacier on the NW side of Icy. The snow here was pleasantly still firm enough for booting, but I could tell it would be primo corn in an hour. The timing was working out perfectly!

Wyatt, the venerable peak bagger, convinced us to go for the true summit of Icy. We traversed around the right side of the west summit and across a south facing snow slope to the summit block. The post holing here was hip deep – truly awful. I think the rocks above were transmitting heat into the thin snowpack and warming it from below, as the sun warmed it from above. When we reached the summit block, we dumped snow and water out of our boots and put on running shoes for the scramble.

The scramble was actually quite enjoyable, mostly solid, with a brief section of exposed class 4 on the ridge.

When we returned to the NW side of Icy, the corn was primo. High clouds were passing by overhead and a wind came from the west, keeping the corn just right on north aspects. This run was awesome, skiing above the Nooksack Cirque.

We had one long climb back up Ruth. Here we got our best views of the lower Nooksack Cirque. The glacier used to descend all the way to the valley floor near 3,000 ft.

We hit a notch around 6700 ft on Ruth, giving us access to the north slopes. Even in the afternoon, the north slopes were still holding wonderful corn. We were about to go 4 for 4 on our descents!

It was a 2000 ft descent “down the gut” on the north slopes of Ruth. If my ski season had to be represented by a single run, this one would be a good choice – thoroughly scenic, enjoyable, and filled with joy.

We had to sidehill out of the lower valley to get back to the trail and our shoes, but then it was an easy hike back to the car.

Ruth and Icy was a great end to my ski season, encapsulating a season where I have prioritized adventure and quality above convenience and quantity. And after a few rough spring seasons, it restored some faith in the fickle Cascadian Corn. Ruth is a great late spring tour, arguably one of the simplest and most scenic!

Notes:

• We measured 19 miles and 8600 ft gain. It took us around 11.5 hours.
• We had to hike 4 miles to snow, but this was actually ideal. When people go earlier in the spring, they encounter discontinuous snow patches with all of the avy chutes to cross. We felt that this was great timing because we had a dry trail to hike, and then full snow coverage. For this reason, I would classify Ruth as a “late spring” tour.
• The south couloir of Ruth was getting a little thin and likely will melt out in the coming weeks. The north and east sides will be good for a while though.
• The lower part of the main gut on the north side of Ruth was melted out, so we went skier’s right there.
• Our timing worked really well because we skied east, south, northwest, and north.
• Ruth and Icy have glaciers that we crossed, but we did not bring glacier gear because we felt the risk was very low with a good refreeze and skis. Some might feel different. If you’re on the fence, then rope up.
• Icy’s scramble was pretty short and mostly good rock, but one section felt like exposed class 4. I definitely appreciated bringing shoes other than ski boots for this, but it is not slabby so Dylan climbed it in ski boots.