Several years back I did this tour as a recon just to see if would go. It does. Given good low-elevation coverage and a sunny window, it’s a long slog of a climb starting below 3000 feet. I’d wanted to do it from the bottom just to set up for some bigger stuff to follow potentially this spring or summer.
All of the usual suspects were otherwise occupied today so I figured it’d be a good day for a flail that I’d be otherwise hesitant to suggest anyone else accompany me on.
| "Welcome to your slog" |
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I sort of self-improved a parking space at the trailhead & was on my way. A pretty impressive amount of snow in the clearing at the side of the road soon turned to a few meager inches in places due to heavy tree coverage. All was well coverage-wise by the time I started to approach ~3500 feet.
| A little scruffy in the lower elevations |
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Easy trail-following until I reached about 5000 feet or so – at which point the tree-lined corridor disappeared, the snow got much deeper, and the trail-breaking began in earnest. Skirted climbers right as much as possible as I knew I’d be bracketed in by the Zigzag Canyon. As I continued to climb the drifts of snow blown at the canyon edge got meatier and meatier.
| Some beautiful blue skies and meadows nearing treeline |
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| First good glance into Zigzag Canyon and some of the visibility issues to come |
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Passed through a couple of small open alpine meadows & finally emerged above treeline . . . and into a bit of weather and limited visibility. Felt pretty good about punching on as long as there were trees to get a fix on, but after going featureless the low-vis was crimping me a bit. I made it to a bit of a knob and pulled up. The wind was working pretty hard out of the NNW and the rime was accumulating pretty rapidly on my left side.
| The rimed-up woolies |
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I’d de-skinned and made about 12 turns or so when the heavens finally opened up. Turned around and looked back up & could see Mississippi Head and Illumination Rock pretty clearly . . . the summit was still heavily obscured by a lenticular cloud (not a good summit day – you didn’t miss nuthin’ Todd!). So I popped the carpets back on and started back uphill.
| Wait a minute . . . I may have turned around . . . |
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| . . . too soon! First good look at Mississippi Head, Illumination Rock, and the lenticular-covered summit |
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| The view across the upper Zigzag Canyon parallel with Mississippi Head. Lots of natural avalanche activity in the upper canyon. A big one is visible center- photo and an even bigger one can be seen on the next ridge |
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| A close-up on the closest slide - the fracture-line is still clearly visible |
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While the low visibility and riming had relented, the wind had not. By about 7200 feet, I was getting pushed around pretty hard and there was some more ominous-looking cloud behavior again approaching from the NNW. Could see Jefferson to the south with a big cloud cap on it as well and St. Helens to the north was totally obscured. Enough writing on the wall for me, so I settled in for the return to the car.
| A final view down-canyon |
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| Hero-tracks in rime and silky powder snow on the way back down to treeline |
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Uneventful descent - nothing truly spectacular about it other than the views near the top – transportation to the trailhead more or less…
| Two-way street through one of the meadows |
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However, once I’d dropped down a pretty good ways below treeline – there was a significant stretch of tedious kick-and-glide to get off a little plateau (enough to put a bit of the ‘Singer Legs’ into me) immediately followed by a mad-cap luge run down the very narrow & aggressively switch-backing trail back to the trailhead.
| Entering into the zone of spills, chills, and thrills on the narrowing lower trail |
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I’ve since wondered if the snowshoers that I met up there were able to pick out a couple of significant ‘dabs’ that I left behind when they were on their way down . . . ?!