White Pass, WA 3/1/2017

[tseeb]

Another day, another state and another new-to-me ski area. White Pass, 53 miles W of Yakima (corrected direction and will note that it's 109 miles SE and a little over 2 hours from Olympia) on what I think is the only pass open in winter that crosses the Cascades between Oregon and I-90. They claim an annual snowfall of 380" and reported 4" new in last 12 hours and 16" in last 48 hours. The base is 4500' and it was very windy, with some poor visibility at and above 6K' until mid-afternoon. They open at 8:45. I got 2nd chair and rode with a regular from near Centralia, WA who knew a lot of other regulars from free RV lot and showed me around. We took a couple of frontside runs using 1500' vertical Great White chair before moving to what he called Slo-Mo chair (picture is Great White Express and not sure it was best day ever but a lot better than old guy I rode lift with who sad 'bad' conditions were keeping people away)

as Basin quad is not high-speed. Ride time is listed as 8:15 for 675' vertical, but chair was running extra slow due to wind on the W side of mountain. That side is all intermediate and was added in the last 10 years. We took one lap on slightly steeper and faster, but also wind-affected Colouir chair before heading into upper mountain lodge for $2.50 coffee/hot chocolate that included one free refill if you didn't use a paper cup. I noticed my guides looked like he found cream when staffer said they were out and she would get some and all he said was "Bailey's".

We returned to frontside by skiing past closed chair 4 on Paradise to Paradise Cliff where snow was deep and untracked, but partially wind-affected. We must have taken another frontside run or two before we returned to upper mountain lodge where I bought my guide an IPA beer and I had a Pale Ale with half sandwich left over from previous day while he had a small clam chowder. Food and beer were very reasonable and he said they have very generous servings. Beers were $5/$7 for 12/16 ounces. While I had the better deal, when I asked to taste the IPA of the day, they gave me 3-4 ounces.

We skied down to and rode up SloMo, then skied under lift which I don't think had any other riders on it. We returned to frontside via Waterfall where we were surprised to have to pass six people, all women or girls, as it was the most people I saw skiing all day. On the way there I noticed steep untracked big trees below cat-track that looked skiable, but my guide said he know guys on ski patrol and even they don't ski them. When he quit for the day about 1 pm, I started lapping Great White Express, where I was able to find some untracked powder and a lot of windsift, with sometimes unexpected transitions back and forth between the two. I skied Cascade and Holiday Cliffs, finding some amazing untracked or re-filled powder and wind-sift then moved to Mach V and North Peak to Roller Cliffs and Execution before finally getting into Hourglass where sign faced the chair and downhill, not the run the passed it so it was easy to miss.

I went to the car about 2:30 to finish the Deschutes I had poured into a small water bottle so I could fill my growler with Sweet Jane Northwest IPA at Double Mountain the previous night. I swapped to my 96-waist Fischers as I was getting tired of the weight of my powder skis after two full days on them in a lot of chopped up snow. The Rangers were better at speed on the wind-sift, worked well for steep powder turns, but not as well on lower angle powder and I had to carefully watch for the transitions. For my last run, I did very short hike to top of North Peak

which got me a few very steep and deep powder turns, then got a 3rd lap on Execution that was still very smooth and deep on steep top, then was shallower windsift all the way to bottom.

View attachment 1 I took off my skis at 4:04 with my watch counting 21 runs and 27.7 K vertical. On the way back to Yakima, first I saw what I thought was a moose on edge of road, but probably was just a mule deer that is a lot bigger than the little deer I'm used to seeing in CA. The guy behind me turned around to take a picture, then I pulled over when I saw this bird in river.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Thanks, I don't think I've ever seen a TR from White Pass or the trail map for that matter.

 

[Tony Crocker]

White Pass is west not east of Yakima.

I skied White Pass Jan. 2, 1986. No Couloir chair then, and of course the front side wasn't high speed. My ex had friends in Yakima whom we visited after Christmas that season. That trip included my first 3 days at Bachelor.

The guy in Yakima was an 8th grade history teacher there at the time of the Feb. 26, 1979 total solar eclipse, the last one in the continental US until this coming Aug. 21. At the time they believed the false rumors that the sun was dangerous during totality. Thus both the 8th grade class and the wife and 5 year old daughter stayed inside and did not see it. The couple in Yakima will be among the 57 people in our group for the Jackson tram in August.

 

[tseeb]

Thanks, I don't think I've ever seen a TR from White Pass or the trail map for that matter.

Your welcome. An EpicSki member from N of Seattle said the place is flat, but I thought the front side had some good steeps. I also thought I would be ready for an easier day and three days skiing in OR and a lot of driving.

White Pass is west not east of Yakima.

Of course it is and I found it. Thanks for the correction. I usually have a pretty good sense of direction, but trip report was rushed and barely proofread.

Not my excuse for this mistake, but driving in the Pacific NW since skiing Steven Pass on Thursday has almost all (some was I-5) been driving in deep forested river valley where clouds obscure the tops of the ridges. I'm not sure that I can use that for mistake I made after Baker on Friday when I got too close to Canada when driving to room in Bellingham which caused me about 10 extra miles of driving. That one I can blame on not reading sign and lack of cell service.

I found the triple and quad towers on old front-side chair at White Pass interesting. The newer high-speed quad follows a much better line as it's below the ridge while old chair is on the ridge. The new chair does go right over a 20'+ cliff that looked filled in enough to be do-able, but I heard they will pull your pass for it if your name is not Mahre.

Adding a picture to show their sign

and it shows part of old frontside chair going over Execution. New chair is to the left. Guy I skied with in AM said White Pass will be very busy this weekend with Winter Carnival

and they were busy a couple of years ago when ski areas closer to Seattle were closed or had poor snow and White Pass was a lot better. I also like that their sign says May while Kirkwood will close April 16 with 20' of snow next to parking lot.