Returning to the Magic

The Cascade River Road is my favorite place to ski in the spring in Washington. And over all my tours in the area, the Magic S Loop might be my favorite all around tour. Sure, the Isolation Traverse might cover more terrain, and Sahale has more classic views. But the Magic S Loop wins for simple travel, a straightforward approach, great skiing, and of course, epic views. It is comparable to the Forbidden Tour, but technically a bit easier (no rappel or serious glacier travel). I don’t like repeating things, but the Magic S Loop is definitely worthy of repeating.

John, Chris, Wyatt, and I departed from a very full Eldorado parking lot an hour before sunrise, walking up the road past the gate. It was a cold night, but we were hoping for a few inches of powder on north aspects, and sun softening on solar aspects. After a brief break at the luxurious toilets at the Cascade Pass Trailhead, we changed into ski boots and thrashed into the alder. It was only about ten minutes of bashing before we popped out into snowfields. Sadly, it seemed to be only a little better coverage than late June 2020, and it is only late April this year!

Unlike last time, the snow was very firm down low, so we just donned crampons and started booting up the gut. We would not use our skins for most of the day.

Last time, Nick and I skinned much of the exposed traverse to Cache Col. This time, that was not an option. Even with crampons, it was definitely attention grabbing. One of my dyneema crampons fell off, but only after getting through the steepest section fortunately.

The Cache Glacier actually had a few inches of chalky powder, which gave us hope for the S Glacier. Once at Cache Col, we bathed in the glorious morning sunshine and soaked in the iconic view of Formidable.

One benefit of doing this route earlier in the season is that all the north faces still held wintery snow features, like spines and cornices. When I did this route last time, it was basically a suncupped summer snowpack. These mountains are beautiful at any time of year, but definitely more incredible with their winter coat.

The surface was smooth and firm, but surprisingly free of avy debris. We enjoyed a decent descent down to Kool Aid Lake and dramatic morning lighting.

Just below the lake, we returned to crampons and climbed up to Art’s Knoll. This section has beautiful views of the depressingly snow free Middle Fork Cascade River.

The Hurry Up – Art’s Knoll col was plastered in rime ice. Rocks had easily 6 inches of growth from the last storm. Rime forms when supercooled water droplets from moist clouds freeze instantly on contact with surfaces, growing into the wind. They are beautiful to look at, but make for terrible skiing. I have never seen so much rime off of a Cascade volcano.

Wyatt had his sandwich slide down the firm snow to the south, so we were compelled to ski a short run down the moraine to retrieve it. From there, it was back to crampons and up the Plan B Couloir.

Plan B is not that long, but probably steepens to 45 degrees or slightly more. We started by french stepping but quickly had to switch to mostly front pointing, kicking hard into the snow. After a few rocks whizzed by us, John accelerated to booked it to the top. The others were tiring out in the firm snow, so I took to chopping steps with an ice axe. It was slow, but definitely made things more secure. We were all relieved when we made it to the top.

We took a moment to give our calves a break and finally put on skins to reach the true summit of Hurry Up. It was super low angle, but the surface was literal ice and it was actually kind of tricky to reach the summit ridge on skins. We left the skis behind for the short, firm boot to the true summit.

Hurry Up Peak has great views by any standard, and certainly one of the best views for a peak under 8,000 ft in the Cascades! Spider and Formidable loom in your face, while high peaks to the north and east go on forever. We could even see the Olympics clearly!

Kam’s group popped out from the couloir, so we skied over to them and chatted, before starting our descent of the S Glacier. John took the descent first, linking turns through a few inches of nice chalky powder over the initial roll.

After the first roll, we had to go left or right through a steeper pitch, probably 40 degrees or more. Both looked quite icy. John tried left initially, which is what I skied last time, but reported terrible ice. So I took us right, which still required crossing some old avy debris that accumulated rock hard rime. But after that, it was better.

After once last icy constriction, we made it to lower angled terrain and could breath a sigh of relief. I forgot that the S Glacier is a pretty serious line! The chalk continued all the way down, providing good, but not great, skiing.

We trended right and easily found the chute to take us through the lower cliffs. Even that was pretty good skiing until some predictable avy debris at the bottom.

We finally had a hot climb on our ascent to Alliteration Col (between Magic Mountain and Pelton Peak). The snow on this south aspect was proto corn, the kind that blows out as you try to skin. But at least the scenery was lovely.

At Alliteration Col, we knew that the hard work was now over. Last time, the Yawning Glacier was the best run of the trip – ripper corn. This time, it was still mostly firm, but it is still such a fun, long, wide open run down into Pelton Basin.

The climb back to Cascade Pass was slow but scenic. Pelton Basin is a beautiful spot, with a flowing creek and towering peaks above.

We talked to some campers at Cascade Pass before enjoying nearly 2000 ft of ripper corn (best snow of the day) down to the trailhead. We repeated the short bushwhack, changed out of our ski boots, and walked back down the road. I’ve come to enjoy the walk – admiring the giant peaks above, and reminiscing on yet another great day in paradise.

Although conditions were not perfect, we had a great time on the Magic S Loop. While some tours feel less magical the second time around, this one felt just as wonderful. It really confirmed my view that the Magic S is among the very best tours in all of Washington for its ease of access, scenery, and ski terrain.

Notes:

• Including the road walk, the route was 18 miles and 9700 ft gain. It took us just about 12 hours.
• We definitely underestimated how hard of a freeze there would be. I think we would have been better off starting an hour later. The group behind us said Plan B was much easier booting an hour later, and the Yawning had corned up by the time they descended.
• Plan B was a very serious climb. We felt a bit undergunned with aluminum crampons and a single ax. Definitely think about timing here if conditions are firm (we had 6-7k ft freezing levels).
• Is this a corn tour or powder tour? I think it is definitely simpler to do late season when the snowpack is very consolidated, since you travel on a variety of aspects throughout the day. However, that probably won’t be an option this year with our sad snowpack. We felt comfortable because of the cool temps, so we were not concerned about the climb up to Alliteration Col getting too dangerous.
• On a warm day, consider the sun exposure on the slope traversing to the Cache Glacier from Cascade Pass. This spot gets morning sun and could produce wet slides.
• All the glaciers we traveled seemed very smooth with no cracks showing currently.
• As things melt out more, you will have to hike more up the valley to get on snow from the trailhead. This doesn’t really mean more bushwhacking, just more hiking up small rocks. Alternatively, you could take the summer trail. With deeper snow coverage, there isn’t any alder at all.