Cascade Pass BC Skiing

Warming up near the fire

Eric and Matthew, March 6-8, 2020

Matthew flew in to town for the weekend and by Friday afternoon we made it to the start of the snow at mile 13 on Cascade River Road. It was too deep for the forester so we loaded up plastic sleds expedition style and started skiing up the road.

The snow was continuous to mile 14, then discontinuous until mile 17, which involved some annoying booting. By 1800ft we were skinning again, crossing in to north cascades national park at mile 18. We eventually reached the eldorado trailhead just at sunset. Amazingly tire tracks from a truck reached just about to the trailhead. It was able to drive over the gate since the snow was so deep.

We ditched the sleds near the outhouse, crossed the stream and set up camp in the woods.

Skinning up to Cascade Pass

Saturday morning we started up the route to climb Eldorado, but it was so steep and dense that it was very slow going with skis and too deep to boot up. The weather was supposed to be pretty bad anyways, so we soon turned around and instead continued skiing up the road to Cascade Pass. The snow was deep enough to completely bury all road and trail signs, but we made our best guess where Johannesburg campground was and set up camp there.

We made a brief trip up to near the crest of Cascade Pass before whiteout and snow set in and we skied back down. We spent the rest of the afternoon digging an awesome camp and huge fire pit and having an evening fire with dinner.

Sunday morning it was still socked in with clouds and we skied all the way back to the car, then Matthew flew out that evening.