[christensent]

Trailhead is accessible and has no snow in case anyone has any question. No snow for 2.5 miles when reaching 4000ft, from here we were able to skin up on dirty branch covered forest snow. Sadly the forest is awful skiing and the glacier is somehow dirty and pollen covered to a really high elevation (over 7000ft) so this is not really the best ski route anymore. Camped on the glacier around 7000ft. Woke up to 50ft visibility and navigated up the glacier by GPS. Broke out of the clouds right at the summit block. My friend stayed at the base of the block while I started up glad to now be armed with two ice axes. This is some really high consequence terrain with no tolerance for error. Sadly the snow is not continuous and right in the narrowest part there's a section with no snow (not visible in any of my pictures) which would have required pulling up onto a snow patch with one crampon point waist high on a tiny rock ledge which I did not want to down-climb. No rope = leave. The closest I've come to the summit on now four attempts. Couldn't believe how melted out it was up there, I didn't even research the summit block because I knew when it's snow covered it's an easy snow climb. It's not in that condition right now. Skied down on hard frozen snow that wasn't yet ripe, then when we got to camp it immediately turned to grabby pollen covered snow that hadn't refrozen. Then the forest was just awful. There was no good skiing anywhere on route and we were thrilled to get back to our shoes and start carrying skis.

The bad step is at the top of this narrow snow finger which is discontinuous

Never had that happen before

[Malachai Constant]

Ickey poo

[nordique]

Very cool! One of my favorite ski tours was a single-day trip up to the base of the summit pyramid of Shuksan, via the Sulphide, way back in May 1980. We bivied in a VW van at the trailhead, slogging up wet shrubbery to where we could get onto our skis on snow--where we broke through drizzle and, above the clouds, into glorious sun! We passed climbers still in their tents. Several of our gang brought ice axes and went to the summit. I was the only skier in the group wearing under-the-ankle nordic racing boots, so there were sections on the ascent where, if I lost an edge, I might've slid to my death. Luckily, those sections were really soft on the descent! My 1980 photos here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsiDs422R It was so much fun and so gorgeous that I swore I'd do it again every spring--but then the old telemark gang dissolved and I never got to go back. Too late in life to do it now!