Goat Rocks, GOATed Corn

For Memorial Day Weekend, John, Chris and I decided to head to the Southern Cascades to ski Mt. Adams. We skied the SW Chutes on Saturday, but the surprising amount of rime we found up high, coupled with another windy forecast, made us nervous about our original plan to ski something on the north side of Adams on Saturday.

The only other reasonable nearby option for Sunday was the Goat Rocks. I first visited the Goat Rocks two years ago on a high route with Logan. We approached from the rarely visited east side, crossing the massive post glacial bowls on the east side of the range. The ski potential seemed enormous. The trouble was access and timing. The Volken guidebook has a Goat Rocks tour, but it approaches from the south fork Tieton, so the aspects don’t make any sense with corn – you have to ski east at the end of the day. But a week earlier, I saw a post that the Snowgrass Flats Trailhead on the west side was drivable already! Approaching from this side, we could pop over the ridge to ski the east side in the morning, then ski back west to end the tour.

Given this was our plan B, we had not done much research. Our loose plan was to try to circumnavigate Ives Peak, skiing the east aspect, south aspect, and finally west aspect, following the sun. We weren’t sure if the south side had enough coverage, but we would find out!

We got a 5 AM start from Snowgrass Flats, hiking along the flat trail for a few miles. There were a few localized sections of bad blowdowns.

At 5250 ft, there is a trail junction. Up to this point, the trail had been nearly completely void of snow. But looking uphill, snow suddenly began in the colder creek drainage. We walked a few steps up the more direct trail and suddenly it was full snow! So we ditched our sneakers here and continued on skins.

The flat terrain slowly increased in snowpack. We linked open areas where the coverage was better. At the Bypass Trail, we crossed the creek, figuring that coverage would be better on an aspect that was more westerly. We were rewarded with mostly easy skinning up above Snowgrass Flats to where it really opened up at 6100 ft.

We were a bit worried about the refreeze at these mid elevations, given the forecast of 11k freezing levels. But once again, the refreeze delivered. With high clouds additionally in the morning, we went from being worried about being too late to wondering how long we would have to wait before our first run.

We headed for a col north of Ives Peak. The snow was very firm here but we edged our way up without crampons. There was about 50 ft of choss to get to the col. The Goat Rocks is an old volcano, and it certainly behaves like it with how little snow accumulates on the windward aspects.

We took break out of the wind behind some rocks, waiting for the corn to ripen. Around 8:45, we dropped in for our first run. It was slightly underripe “pre-corn” but really smooth and fast. We took a giant 1500 ft run down gentled slopes, barely stopping until the bottom.

Down at 6k, we gazed all around at wide open snow slopes. This was just one of many bowls on the east side of the range, and even here, the ski potential was mind boggling. I’m not sure there is anywhere else in Washington with such endless moderate ski potential! There was enough corn back here to feed the entire PNW backcountry ski community and then some. Up until this point, John had been a self proclaimed “Goat Rocks Hater”, but his mind had been changed.

Given the great refreeze, we felt like jumping over to a south aspect already would be premature. So we set our sights on another east facing line off the ridge. We skinned all the way up to 7700 ft, where we got a great view along the axis of the range.

We encountered two hikers traversing from Old Snowy to Ives. I snapped a picture of them through a gap with Mt. Adams in the background.

This run featured a few short steeper rolls and absolutely perfect buttery smooth corn – certainly the best of the season so far. I chased Chris down at terminal velocity, topping 40 mph on this run.

After this run, we skinned up to the southeast ridge of Ives Peak.

The col at 7100 ft was a rocky, wind-scoured wasteland. We had two options: hike down some rocks or across to ski a southwesterly line down to Cispus Basin, or head up the ridge towards Ives in hope there is skiable snow higher up. We decided on the latter. Some hiking up rocks brought us to a continuous snow patch around 7700 ft that angled across the face.

The corn was ripe here at 11:30, so we wasted no time getting ready for a descent. Given the thin conditions on this aspect, the descent was a little traversy. A week or two earlier, we could have skied much more directly down, but this was still a super fun 1500 ft descent with an awesome view of Adams and some sustained pitches of 35 degree skiing.

We took a nice break and refilled on water before our final climb up to the southwest shoulder of Ives.

For our final climb, we rounded the corner of the basin and ascended directly north on mellow slopes towards the 7300 ft col on the south shoulder of Ives. If you didn’t want to ski all the way down to Cispus Basin, you could traverse over to this col on the previous run, never dropping below 7k.

From our final col, we got a clear view of Rainier, St. Helens, and Adams.

It has been a while since I skied a true spring circuit like this, working the aspects to perfection. This tour reminded me more of a classic WA Pass corn harvest like Life is Good, or a Teanaway circuit like Bean Creek. I love the flow of a day like this, feeling the snow change under my skis, and moving with the sun. For about 5 minutes of planning, this tour worked out pretty damn well!

The west facing gully provided more delicious corn on our exit run. It got sticky down around 6200 ft, but we were still able to ski through the flats, following our up track past Snowgrass Flats. We had to take our skis off once or twice and ski a bit of grass, but it was a remarkably quick exit back to our hiking shoes!

After some bigger lines this spring like the Fuhrer Finger and Park Glacier Headwall, this day was a perfect contrast – simple terrain, stress free, pure Type 1 fun. Days like these remind me how I felt in my early days of backcountry skiing, delighted by the freedom and fun of sliding on snow and adventuring in the mountains.

Notes:

• Our tour was 17 miles and 7500 ft gain. About 7 miles of that was hiking. The tightest possible circumnavigation of Ives (skip our second run, don’t descend all the way into Cispus Basin) could cut probably 1500 ft or more off that.
• The amount of snow for the approach was pretty nice. Going earlier, even if you could drive to the trailhead, there might be some annoying snow on the flat section of the trail. I also think that a few weeks later would still be fine because you could just hike the trail to treeline. This is definitely a great area for late season skiing – June to early July on a typical year.
• There is lots of camp potential in the flats on the west side of range for a multi day.
• There is so much ski terrain we didn’t explore back there. It is a dream for moderate spring skiers.
• The glaciers are all pretty much dead here – we didn’t bring any glacier gear.
• We drove FS 21 from its junction with FS 23 coming from Adams. The road was good, in better shape than FS 23. From the Packwood side, the road is in great condition.