Harts Pass Skiing

Harts Pass Skiing

April 4-5, 2021

Saturday night after getting back from climbing Camels Hump I drove to Mazama and met up with a crew of snowboarders planning to head into the Pasayten wilderness. Marissa, Jackson, Caleb, Jordan, and Sam were planning to spend a week riding new lines on the north face of Ptarmigan Peak and making a movie for Jones Snowboarding. They were very nice to invite me along, even though I could only join for the first two days.

I’d previously skied Ptarmigan Peak back in February, in what was likely the first winter ascent of the peak. On that trip I’d snowmobiled in to Billy Goat trailhead for access. An alternate access route is to snowmobile to Harts Pass and ski in the Middle Fork Pasayten. Jackson and Marissa had scouted the road in to Harts Pass Saturday and said it would work. I was excited to check out this alternate approach to the area, since I still needed to go back in there to get winter ascents of some other Bulgers. But I was nervous about getting around Deadhorse Point, which is notorious as one of the most dangerous roads in the lower 48 states. It rounds a corner with a big cliff on the left, with a narrow one-lane road subject to rock slides from above. A friend of mine had snowmobiled it in February and said it was pretty scary. But perhaps it was better in April.

That section of road is on a south-facing slope which means this time of year the snow gets very icy at night and in the morning and slushy in the afternoon. We wanted the snow to be slushy so we could level out a bench to avoid sidehilling, so we took our time in the morning. By 10:30am we headed out towards Harts Pass.

The official parking area to access Harts Pass in the winter is the Yellowjacket sno park. However, in the spring the first half mile of road from the sno park is paved and plowed to a large turnaround area. It’s not great to ride on pavement so generally snowmobilers will unload sleds at the end of the pavement, then drive back to Yellowjacket sno park to park and walk back to the sleds. This was our plan, and we met up at the end of the pavement to unload.

There were already three trucks parked there on the shoulder, and we pulled next to them to unload. I got my sled off and rode it to the snow, and then I heard some guy yelling and cursing at Jordan and Sam. It sounded like he lived in a house nearby and was angry they were unloading there.  They apologized and said they’d be done in a few minutes and planned to park at Yellowjacket. He wasn’t trying to drive out in the next 5 minutes so it didn’t seem like a problem. It’s a public road anyways, and it’s pretty clear everyone unloads sleds here in the spring, so we certainly weren’t doing anything wrong.

A few minutes later, though, he returned carrying an AR-15 and pointing it at us. He continued yelling at Jordan and Sam. I was pretty scared. He seemed crazy enough to shoot. He started slapping the gun and cursing again. We asked him to put the gun down, but he started yelling about his second amendment rights and that he didn’t care where we were from. I’m pretty sure the founding fathers didn’t have crazy guys like this in mind when drafting the second amendment.

We finished unloading the sleds as he loomed over us with his gun cursing. Sam and Jordan then drove their truck away and he finally started walking back to his house. I wanted to call the police, but that would have delayed the trip, and who knows if it would have accomplished anything. Since I was only going to be there one night, and there were already three trucks parked on the opposite side of the road from the crazy guy, I decided to stay parked there. It appeared he wasn’t mad at those people somehow. But the rest of the crew were planning to stay out a week so figured they wouldn’t take up the prime parking areas. They drove back to Yellowjacket and then walked back to the sleds.

Finally we started riding. Jackson and Marissa led the way, having already scouted the road. There were some long melted-out gravel sections down low, interspersed with long snow sections. I was happy to have installed ice scratchers, but a few sleds didn’t have them and they overheated. Eventually we got to Deadhorse point and the riding started getting interesting. The road was narrow, single-lane wide, with a big cliff on the left and melted-out rock slopes on the right. It looked like avy slides had filled in most sections with deep snow matching the angle of the slope. There were narrow shoulders in the snow carved out from previous sleds and improved by Jackson and Marissa the day before, but they were still tricky to navigate.

At one point one person’s sled in front of me tipped over and they jumped off, but luckily it stopped before sliding down. We managed to tip it back up onto the path and dug out the snow more to level and widen the path. We all made it through ok. It was nice the snow was slushy enough for us to level out the rout. The rest of the road continued with sections melted to gravel, narrow snow strips, and sidehilling sections, but we all made it through slowly and carefully.

On the other side the snow became continuous, but now there were deep whoops that made progress slow and tiring. These are like extreme versions of washboarding on gravel roads, but they are a foot or two deep and created by snowmobiles. We continued up slowly, stopping a few times to pack snow on sleds that had overheated. At 5,700ft we reached an area of steep sidehilling. Instead of continuing on the road we turned left and descended into the trees down to the north fork trout creek. The terrain was more level down there and the trees sparse in the old burn zone.

We followed Jackson and Marissa to just below Harts Pass. Then the terrain steepened. A few sleds got stuck trying to get back up from the drainage, and we spent some time digging them out. Eventually we all made it steeply back up to the road at Harts Pass. We continued to a flat area at the intersection of roads 600 and 610, but couldn’t make it any farther. The last mile of road to Slate Pass required lots of technical sidehilling and wasn’t worth it.

We parked the sleds there, packed up our gear, and started skinning up as it started to snow. Jackson and I led the way up to Slate Pass at the edge of the Pasayten Wilderness. It was cold and windy there and felt like winter again.

After we all reached the pass we converted to ski or snowboard mode and rode down the north side. The snow conditions were fun powder and we cut down to the right, shredding powder down an old slide path into the trees. We eventually dropped low enough that the terrain leveled out and we put the skins back on.

We skinned until dark, when we found a nice level area near a melted-out section of the Middle Fork Pasayten River to set up camp. I dug out a trench and laid out my bivy sack while the crew set up a big five-person pyramid tent. That night it snowed a bit and I built a little roof over myself with skis and my pack to keep the snow out.

The next morning the rest of the crew continued on deeper into the Pasayten toward Ptarmigan Peak, but unfortunately I had to head back to civilization. I skinned back out following our tracks, making it back to Slate Pass a few hours later. I had a fun ski back to the sleds, then loaded back up. For some reason my sled had trouble starting, which was a little worrisome, but I eventually got it running. I think I had been too liberal using the choke, which had flooded the engine.

It was 10:30am and the snow was a bit icy still, and I wanted to let it soften up more before I ventured around Deadhorse Point in case I needed to dig out some snow to level it out. So to kill some time I stopped down at Harts Pass, got my skis out, and skinned up a nearby highpoint called Harts Pass Peak. I had great views from the top, and marveled at distant snow bowls the snowmobilers had somehow made it to and ridden.

I skied back to the sled, packed up, and headed down. I carefully dropped back down into the woods, followed our tracks through the trees, then rode back up to the road. I rode the whoops back down, and interestingly passed a broken snowmobile track in the road. Someone must have ridden in after us Sunday, but I’m not sure how they got out without that track, or what happened to the rest of the snowmobile.

The snow around deadhorse point had melted a bit more, and at one point a small rockslide had covered our tracks. I spent some time digging it out, then rode through and dug out a few more sketchy places. I was relieved to finally make it around the point, and rode back down to my forester around 2pm. I was the only vehicle there, and luckily the crazy AR15 guy was not around. I quickly loaded up and started driving out.

Video of riding around Deadhorse Point:

 

 

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