Enchantments Ski Traverse

A ski traverse in november? It’s a pretty bold idea but with La Nina blessing the cascades with a great start to the season, it started sounding reasonable. After some pow days at baker and in the north cascades, I was stoked to continue getting out. Emily was in between jobs with the forest service and ski patrol, and I had an upcoming fall break so we made plans to get some shredding in during thanksgiving week. And luckily enough, the weather gods blessed us. As my break began, a high pressure window came over the cascades.

After persuading Emily that repeating volcanoes was lame, I convinced her on an stuart range ski traverse. It would ideally link up lil Annapurna, Dtail, Argonaut, and Stuart. Emily was told that the south faces wouldn’t go but we had a stoke. Emily dragged along her friend Silvian and we made plans to drop off a car as close to Esmeralda TH Tuesday morning and set off. I didn’t have a 0 degree bag so I resolved to sew one in time. After a busy weekend, I got out for a quick source lake scouting mission on Monday. I got back at 4pm with all my sleeping bag materials delivered. Needless to say it was a long night and at 1am on Tuesday, I was power-resting for the coming trip. 

4am came quickly and I drove over the pass to meet Emily and Silvian where we dropped her car off 6 miles from esmeralda TH. By 08:30, we were walking out of Snow creek. There was a decent amount of snow on the ground but there were still a fair amount of rocks poking through so we kept skis on our backs for an hour. Once we reached the top of the switchbacks, we put skins on and started our journey. Prior, me and Emily had only been as far as the snow-creek wall so from here out it was new terrain to me.

Snow creek was a beautiful endless valley with peaks towering on each side. As we cruised up the valley, the snow depth kept increasing and skiable couloirs caught the eye on each side. Travel was easy with an obvious trail through the woods and a minimal slide alder or bushwack. Benefits of one of the most well traveled trails in the state I guess. The skinning was spiced up every once in a while by random bare spots. By the time we got into the woods, most of the animal tracks had disappeared.

The first lake we hit was Nada Lake, at about 1:30. The lake was all frozen over so we enjoyed our first bits of sunshine as we skinned across it. We joined back along the trail to skin up to lower snow lake, where we finally got our first views of the enchantments at 2:30. Surprisingly, lower snow lake was completely frozen over while the upper snow-lake was snow-free. From here it was only 2.5 miles and 1500’ of gain to lake Vivian so we assumed we’d arrive at camp right at sunset.

Well we didn’t arrive at camp at sunset and it ended up being quite a night. Skinning around upper snow lake was fine- though obviously not as fast as just cutting across the lake. The true challenge came once we started up the forest towards lake Vivian. From here, the summer trail was impossible to follow and we gave into a life of steep, bushwack skinning. Progress was extremely slow and by sunset at 4:30, we were only 500’ up. Given it was still early, we decided to continue on, hoping conditions would improve. Sadly they didn’t. By 6:30, we were 300’ from the lake. We continued but ended up too far right. We found ourselves on top of a steep face so instead of trying to navigate it in the dark, we set up our tent on the knoll between Lake Vivian and Temple Lake at 7:00.

For the trip, we brought along Silvians new MSR Front Range. It was our first time pitching a pyramid tent so the first night was, well... rough. Firstly we made the mistake of not digging the tent below snowline which let tons of wind and snow in. We also didn’t dig in the inside, meaning the edges were unusable since they were too low. And most importantly, we fucked up the side where our heads lied, meaning a lot of snow came in from that side. A lot. The night was rough, with me and emily booting up at 1 am to add snow to cover the edges. After this the wind picked up and though our efforts worked on some sides, the side with our head was still messed up. And thus began the 7 hours of suffering.

We were in and out all night. Whenever I looked up, I felt snow sprinkling onto my face. I conceded to using a jacket hood to cover my head as I slept since my sleeping bag was hoodless. At 7am when I woke up, there was a solid inch or two of snow on my pad around my face and on my hood. We were happy to get going and by 7:45 we were moving, quickly getting down to the lake. From here we skinned across the core zone, strong gusts blasting us. As we neared little annapurna, the wind at the summit was obvious but we decided to just keep going. Skinning up it was efficient until about 100’ below the summit where we decided to transition behind some rocks. A little booting later and we were at the top at 11:15. 

From the top, we quickly started our way down to escape the winds. We skied strong windboard but it turned into powder as we neared Isolation lake, arriving at 11:30. From here it was our plan to climb the summer route up dragontail peak, only 1000’ of vertical away. Me and Silvian both believed we could climb through the cornice but with Emily wary, we couldn’t convince her and decided to ski down asgard pass. The snow was beautiful down to the lake and from here we decided to skin up to colchuck col to at least have a look at the south side. 2.5 hours later we were at banshee pass, but the sun was going down.

Deciding that the traverse was out of question, we decided to ski down to the lake and set up a nice camp. We triggered a small wind slab at the top of the colchuck glacier but other than that, the skiing was amazing. This time we digged out a great campsite by the lake and the only issue we faced was the wet sleeping bags from the night before.

The next morning, we chose against another lap of the colchuck glacier and made our way out. Everything was pretty straightforward and we were in leavenworth by 2pm to learn of all the restaurants being closed for thanksgiving. It was a great ski traverse and I hope to come back in spring. Next time I'll start from stuart lake and hopefully be much more successful.

MYOG #2 - 20/40 sleeping bag

   After modding that sleeping pad, I was feeling inspired to do more make your own gear projects. I had been looking into an ultralight summer-weight sleep system for a while already and it was obvious what to make; a sleeping bag. Out of the gate I set my values of weight, warmth, and efficiency. From these three principles I set about designing the lightest summer-weight bag possible. During my research I came across the Feathered Friends Vireo UL, and thats where I took a lot of my inspiration.

To save weight on my bag, I removed the zipper and taking inspiration from the patagonia hybrid half-bag, I designed the bottom to be warmer so that the top could be used with a jacket. This intentional layering inside the bag meant I also gave it a slightly wide shoulder. Since my jackets have hoods, I also used this as an opportunity to remove the hood of the bag, especially since the bag is only designed for relatively mild temperatures. There are a lot of features one can add to a bag but I forgo most. After I use the bag for a few nights, I’ll decide if I want to add a draft collar.

As far as materials, I used a 7 denier calendered nylon inner fabric and a 10 denier outer. I used 850 fill power water resistant down and 0.5oz/yard noseeum mesh for my baffles. I think I sewed the fabrics inside out but given that I’ll be wearing layers inside the bag, I’m not too worried.

The most radical feature of the bag is the false bottom. Since compressed down doesn’t insulate, I opted to just place a piece of fabric to trap warm air instead of the weight of baffles. This also solves the issue of temperature control without a zipper. Instead of unzipping, I can just rotate the false bottom to face the air. People worry about the bottom being cold, but there is also my sleeping pad to insulate me. So far, I’m still very happy with my decision.

After hours of design, I finally got to sewing, cutting out the fabric went smoothly until the noseeum. Given it’s stretch, its really hard to mark or cut. Eventually, I figured out that I could just tape a straight line while it was slack. In the future, I highly highly recommend just purchasing the pre-cut mesh. It will make your life a lot easier.

After cutting everything out, I sewed the baffles on. This is where I started to notice the failures of my noseeum cutting, with lots of variation in the baffle. However, I just kept rolling with it. Next I hemmed all the edges with heat. I might have failed somehow though since my edges are still fraying in sections. 

After that, I sewed on the other side and filled it with down. It’s a tedious process but it’s fun to finally be giving the bag it’s form. I made the footbox too small and suffered the consequences but it didn’t end up too bad. In the end, while the build quality was definitely objectionable, I’m still happy with the bag. It contains 8.5oz of 850FP down and comes in at a weight of only 12.9oz. I had a great time building it and highly recommend others do so too.

MYOG #1 - Sleeping Pads

 Sleeping pads are probably the most easily customizable piece of gear but I don’t see people doing it as often as you’d think. Closed cell foam customizations are obviously common. Depending on how much you value weight or sleep, you will cut it down to different lengths. Personally, I cut my Thermarest Z-Lite SOL into a 6 piece and 8 piece section. This 6 piece spans between by hip and shoulders, leaving my head to find a pillow and the rest of my body to lay on my backpack. My backpack has a removable foam back panel so this is efficient for me. I use the 8 piece section when I still want the weight savings of a short foam pad yet want just a little more comfort. Scissors or a razor blade works great for this. Just cut it along one of the folds and it will be good as new.

The other less common customization is of inflatable pads. It’s fair to be scared of cutting a gaping hole into your $200 pad but it works. To cut an inflatable pad, lie on it while inflated and mark the seam where you want to cut. Then, cut almost at the next seam . Don’t cut right at the seam or the inner insulation will be connected at the cut. Practice this at a lower portion of the pad to understand a little more of what I’m talking about. Now you should have the fabric and disconnected inner insulation. Either push the insulation into the bag or cut it, then iron the two pieces of shell fabric together at the highest heat. This will hold the air and work great. 

I did this recently for the first time. I found a neoair x-lite NXT with a leak at wonderland gear exchange for $15. It was too big anyways so I cut it down. Luckily, the leak was on the part I had cut off so for $15 and less than an hour of work, I got a light, well sealed pad. Obviously thermarest probably doesn’t recommend this but it’s worked for many people including me. I know Steve House would approve.