TR: Long and Awesome - Forbidden Tour Day Trip
Looking to take full advantage of ditching work on a sunny day, an ambitious tour was in order. After some discussion, Sam and I settled on the Forbidden Tour, a North Cascades classic. Typically done as a 2-3 day trip, we were determined to condense it into one day.
The alarm came early, and we were skinning/walking the 4 miles up the Cascade River Road by 2:30 AM. After some slippery, ski crampon assisted skinning we were rewarded with incredible early morning views of one of my favorite Cascade Peaks, Johannesburg.
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Sunrise on Eldorado; we'd ski this later in the tour:
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Travel was much easier on the firm slopes once we gained the Quien Sabe Glacier:
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Booting the Shark Fin Col was an interesting mix of hollow avi debris and very firm bed surface.
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Normally a rap is required form the Shark Fin Col into Boston Basin. We were pleasantly surprised to see the North side of the col filled in making the skiing easy. The fact that it was pow iced the cake nicely. Sam dropping the Shark Fin sans rope:
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Pondering the Boston Glacier:
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Prime meadow skipping down the Boston Glacier:
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Looking back. Another party skied into Boston Basin via a col near Tower Peak (lookers left tracks):
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Progress to this point had been super smooth with awesome scenery and skiing; Sam was stoked!
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Booting the col between the Boston and Forbidden Glaciers:
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Beautiful surroundings dictated lots of scenic pics. North face of Forbidden Peak here:
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The 3,400' ski descent to Moraine Lake was superb. Many high speed turns on under ripe, very smooth corn were enjoyed:
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Looking back at what we skied:
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And looking ahead to our final objective:
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We chilled out at Moraine Lake, melted water and enjoyed the best Ramen soup I've ever eaten. At this point we were a little over halfway through the vertical gain on the tour, with one big uphill push to Eldorado left. Feeling rejuvenated we set off around 10:45 AM hoping to beat the heat that was beginning to bake the basin.
A line for next time?
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The pain of tired legs was eased by many natural distractions:
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Getting closer:
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Skinning Eldo's East ridge:
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Eldorado's iconic summit ridge:
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Obligatory summit shot:
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Dropping!
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The skiing lower down was over ripe corn until we hit the talus field, which was deep, unconsolidated mush. Here's Sam enjoying the last bit of good snow:
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After enduring the mush, snow gave way to dirt and we walked the climbers trail back to the road.
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Day packs and TLT5's made this experience much less painful than it could have been. We were able to mostly ski back to the car, and celebratory beers were enjoyed around 5 PM capping off an incredibly satisfying day in the Mountains!
