Thin But In

Kelly and I have a tradition of visiting the Methow Valley around New Years. While we’re mostly going for the nordic skiing, I try to get in some backcountry skiing also. This year, with debris flows from the recent atmospheric rivers covering Highway 20 just past Early Winters, and a lackluster low elevation snowpack, I was going to have to get creative. I decided to check out the Twisp River Sno-Park to see if I could do some touring from there.

From the beginning, at 2300 ft, it was evident that the snowpack was pretty meager. There was about 6-8 inches of powder on top of downed branches and bushes – zero base. Fortunately, the terrain didn’t seem to rocky. I decided to head uphill and see if things would improve.

I made my way up the north facing slopes through relatively open trees. Despite the lack of snowpack, it really wasn’t too difficult to make progress. With another foot or so, this approach would be smooth.

Finally, around 3700 ft, the snowpack was finally sufficient that I would call it “skiable”. In the cold shade, the snow was still lovely settled powder. The forest was a nice mixed forest, with a surprising amount of Ponderosas despite the northerly aspect. Although the area was part of the 2018 Crescent Mountain Fire, relatively few trees were burned.

At 5100 ft, I finally crested onto a flat ridge, with sparkling snow in the sunshine. I had a wonderful view of the rolling hills of the Methow Valley, and the glacial carved Twisp River Valley. I measured only 70cm of snow depth, even up here!

I skied a nice run through spaced trees, bouncing over downed logs. It can be fun to ski a shallow, but not sharky, snowpack because it feels like a backcountry terrain park! Given the effort I put to get up there, and the PTex I would sacrifice on the way out, I decided to take a second quick lap before finally heading down.

Below about 3200 ft, the skiing was very dicey. There was not much to do but keep my speed low, lean back, and pray to the PTex gods! Remarkably, I scraped on a bunch of downed trees, but did not sustain any serious damage!

Despite the lackluster snowpack, this was a fun adventure checking out a new area, while still having enough time to skate ski with Kelly in the afternoon!