Splitboarding Season 2023 Recap
Here's some highlights from my second season of splitboarding. I got out a lot more this year than last season, attempted / did some really interesting and classic routes, and had a ton of fun!
Most of the route names are from Matt Schonwald's Backcountry Skiing Snoqualmie Pass Washington book, FatMap, or are well known classics. I didn't record a ton, so there's a lot of fun memories I have that aren't in the video, but maybe next year I'll try harder to record the cool bits. As always the highlights leave out a lot of skinning up the mountains, and slogs to get back to the trailhead after the descent.
Christmas Tree Bowl on Roaring Ridge was Paul's first ever splitboard trip, and I think it was a good intro. We skinned in on / next to the XC ski trail then climbed up the popular skin track to some DEEP powder at the top. As shown in the video Paul was making his first downhill turn on the new splitboard and wasn't prepared for all the powder, but quickly after this shot he got the hang of it and we surfed some epic glades.
The Martini Bowl on Rampart Ridge with Paul and Ethan was pretty intense for our second trip of the season / ever, but it went smoothly. It's not a popular route so we followed tracks on old logging roads for a while but had to find our own path across the heavily treed ridge to gain the bowl. You can see the line from the opening picture, from the highway, and from the ski resort across the valley. I find it inspiring that we did that route. As you can see from the videos we found plenty of powder in the bowl at the top, then descended down through an interesting couloir feature which eventully spat us out after a little drop, which Paul and Ethan managed better than I did. :) The unpopularity - it looked like we were the only ones up there in the week - plus the steepness and rock features made this the line that I'm most proud of looking back on the season.
Yodelin with Ari and Paul was a fun mostly treed trip. For me it was a chill route with no particularly noteworthy features, just some glades up top into a fire road with little side hits that basically gets groomed from all the people going up and down it. A good day out with friends. As you can tell we were working on Paul's stunt reel to impress the ladies.
Table Mountain Circumnavigation was a really fun day! Ari and Paul and I enjoyed epic views of Mt Baker and Shuksan as you can see from the photos, plus there were some fun descents and chill skinning. This trip makes me want to try some more traverses / circumnavigations, though I expect that other ones will have difficulty beating these views.
Mt. Catherine is behind the Snoqualmie ski resort, so Paul and I decided to try to splitboard it while Ari was taking a ski lesson. Unfortunately we totally underestimated the time it would take to get to the base of Mt. Catherine. We spent a while traversing ski lifts to exit the ski area on a snowshoe track. Unfortunately the snowshoe track and terrain to the base of the mountain was miles of tiny rolling bumps which was exhausting to splitboard since Paul and I are not very good split skiers. We got lots of practice on the rolls though but only made it a little ways up the shoulder of the mountain before our turnaround time to make the lifts needed to get back to the car. Amusingly we found this little slope with untouched light powder (for Washington's maritime snowpack). We made the six turns you can see in the clip before having to put skins back on and huff it back over those miles of rollers to the lifts. Overall it was a funny trip and good learning experience to never underestimate the approach. And those were the surfiest most fun few turns all season.
The North Bowl of Humpback is another line that you can see from the highway, and it was a really fun trip with just me and Paul. We ascended up the east face for what felt like forever before gaining the narrow ridge over the cliffs that you can see in the second clip, we traversed over the ridge in split mode until the steep drop in pictured in the first clip. Surprisingly for so late in the season we could ride all the way back down to the old railroad, but then had to skin for a couple miles back on the railroad before bushwhacking down on our boots back to the trailhead. I'd really recommend this one for a pretty long but non-technical descent.
Mt. St. Helens with Ari, Paul, Ethan, and Clint was a total classic and a fun one. To be honest my legs were getting tired from all the elevation gain on the way up, but we made it in good time. We skinned from the trailhead to halfway up the false summit then decided it was too steep and booted to the crater rim from there. We didn't go to the "summit" further along the crater but that's common apparently. The cornice at the crater rim I can only assume was huge and had a knee deep crack in it that I stepped in probably 30 ft back from the lip, so be careful up there! Ari and I took an alternate descent one ridge skier's left of the uphill route and it was worth it for some fresh slushy turns. The video clip is from the false summit, but I swear it looked steeper going uphill.
Camp Muir is a classic skiing daytrip up the most common route of Mt. Rainier. Our trip with Ari, Paul, and Clarisse was Clarisse's first splitboarding trip. It was super fun, the views and company were great, and we almost made it to camp before our turnaround time. Clarisse did super well and had a lot of fun, I'm looking forward to going on more trips with her next year!
Our Mt. Adams attempt didn't go to plan due to an tendonitis injury, but Ari, Paul and I drove down together and met up with Ethan and Tudor for an early morning play on a crusty snow patch low on the mountain. I found that area of southern Washington beautiful and different to some of the rainforests further north. Next year we'll come back earlier in the season when there's more snow and attempt the South Chutes which are supposed to be totally classic.
And that was it! 9 splitboarding trips with a bunch of resort snowboarding, hiking, mountaineering, climbing, and life events in between. Looking back through these photos and videos makes me feel really grateful to live in Washington and get to experience these mountains with these people.