Other than photography, my other big passion is ski touring. Although ski touring provides amazing photo ops, the process doesn’t lend itself to a big dslr and a bunch of lenses. In fact, you have to be prepared for the possibility that all of your gear will get water logged (even if you have everything in plastic bags). So to allow me to remain a photographer while ski touring, I bought a relatively inexpensive point a shoot for bringing with me on ski tours.

The thing about ski touring is it generally requires you to be in pretty good shape; something that I am currently not. But my brother talked me into doing a 2 day guided ski tour to climb Sahale Peak in the North Cascades Mountains.

Right from the start, the trip had 3 miles added to it from the start because the road to the trail head was washed out last fall, which meant an extra 3 miles of hiking in ski boots.



You can see one spot where the road was washed out with only the drain culvert left remaining



The trail itself wasn’t in that good of shape as you can see from this one spot where we had to cross a boulder field



We eventually got to snow, which allowed us to put our skis on so we could start touring up hill (its actually much easier to go up hill with touring skis on, than it is to hike up hill).



It wasn’t all work getting up the mountain, we did take a few opportunities to enjoy the sun.



This was our ultimate goal; Sahale Peak. Sahale Peak is known for being one of the most scenic mountain peaks in the Northwest. From the top you can see more mountain peaks than from the top of any other mountain in the North Cascades.



Our campsite was humble, but it was good enough



Through the night we could hear avalanches on the slopes all around us, it sounded like a cross between a high flying jet airplane and thunder off in the distance. It was a bit unnerving and didn’t make it that easy to sleep.

When we woke up the next morning to find 6 inches of snow on our tents, and the snow was still really coming down. We took some time to remove the snow off of the tent, and then climbed back into our tents to see it would clear up while we enjoyed a breakfast of instant oatmeal and hot chocolate.



It never cleared up so we decided to start heading for the peak in hopes that the weather would eventually break. You can see just how bad the white out conditions were



We reached the ridge on the mountain where we needed to take off the skis and put on the crampons and rope up. It was nearly complete white out conditions, the wind was really blowing, and I was completely wiped out. I opted to wait for the others at this point 300 vertical feet from the summit. I figured that I didn’t need to risk my life to see the top in white out conditions. So I skied a little ways below the ridge, and dug a hole in the snow and climbed in it to get out of the wind. After about 30 minutes the sun suddenly broke out and for a few minutes I got a glimpse of the beauty of that place. You can see my ski pole as I took the photo while sitting in my hole.



Then the climbers came off of the peak and we all skied down to our camp site.



And we did get to do some skiing on our way back down



For the rest of the trip down I really didn’t take any pictures, because all I could think of was getting off the hill. Getting some real food and a beer, taking a shower, and then tending to my blisters.

Good travelogue and good pictures. I enjoyed it.
bsvirginian

Originally Posted by bsvirginian Good travelogue and good pictures. I enjoyed it. bsvirginian

Thanks! It was a fun trip.

Those 3 miles in skiboots must have been fun .
Nice pictures (my favourite is the whiteout pic) and interesting reading, thanks for sharing!

Originally Posted by Milan Those 3 miles in skiboots must have been fun . Nice pictures (my favourite is the whiteout pic) and interesting reading, thanks for sharing!

Thanks! I'm still recovering from the blisters on my feet. We considered bringing hiking boots, but then we would have had to carry our ski boots.

As for the white out, our guide was leading us with nothing more than his experience and a compass. There was no way to know up, down, right, or left; it was all the same.

Very nice! And it sounds like a great trip too.

Ian