East Fury Ski/Survey

East Fury Ski/Survey

Eric Gilbertson (solo)

April 17-19

45 miles, 24kft gain

Survey Results: Ice Summit 3.5ft taller than rock summit. Ice summit 8325.0ft +/-0.1ft (NGVD29). This is height at max snow depth time of year. Official mountain height is still height at min snow depth time of year in late summer.

East Fury used to be one of the five remaining icecap peaks in the contiguous US (the others are Rainier, Liberty Cap, Eldorado, and Colfax). These are peaks that have a summit of permanent ice or snow that lasts through the summer. After approximately 1990 the summit of East Fury had melted down enough that a rocky point became the highest point of the mountain in late summer, meaning it was no longer an icecap peak.

I’m working on a project to track the elevations of these icecap peaks over time on an annual and seasonal basis using professional surveying equipment. I’ve previously measured the elevations of all five icecap peaks at the lowest snow time of year, late summer, using a differential GPS unit. Now I’m measuring their elevations at the highest snow time of year. This will help understand why the summits are losing elevation (whether it’s due to lower snow accumulation or melting or both). Based on the nearest snotel sites, the highest snow time of year is historically mid/late April for East Fury.

East Fury is one of the most remote peaks in the contiguous US, and access is challenging. There are two main approaches. During summer, the route is to hike from the Ross Dam trailhead up Big Beaver to Access Creek. Then the route follows access creek to Luna Col, then follows the ridge west to the Fury Glacier and up to the summit. This involves a short stretch of low 5th class rock and is about 54 miles round trip. This is the approach I used to survey East Fury in late October 2024.

In the spring, the ideal route is to approach from Diablo, then hike up the Sourdough Lookout Trail to Stetattle Ridge. This ridge is then skied to a col above Azure Lake. The route then descends the north side to McMillan Creek, then ascends the southeast basin to gain the Fury Glacier and meet up with the summer route. This route avoids rock climbing and is about 40 miles round trip.

I had a long weekend break for Easter, which was important for East Fury. All other icecap peaks could be surveyed as day trips, but East Fury would require at least two days. East Fury generally has the worst weather of the five peaks, but it looked like there was a potential Thursday-Friday window, with marginal weather Saturday and bad weather Sunday. I wasn’t able to find a partner in time for this window so ended up going solo. My plan was to approach to McMillan Creek basin Thursday, set up camp, then summit early Friday and potentially ski out in a mega day. Or, I could camp another night and ski out Saturday.

One down side with this route is it is very committing. To exit the camp at McMillan Creek requires climbing back up 4000ft then following Stetattle Ridge, which is a long stretch above treeline. If the weather is too hot, the snow might be too unstable to exit up to the col. And if it is too stormy it would be unwise to get back up to the col and be above treeline. The alternative exit is to bushwhack out McMillan Creek to Big Beaver trail, but this is reportedly very challenging and exits at a different trailhead.

For gear I would ski for maximum efficiency. I would bring my ultralight surveying setup (Trimble DA2 dGPS unit and 1ft antenna) instead of the bulkier and heavier Promark 220 dGPS setup that I had used on my previous survey. I really like to bring both for redundancy, but that would be too heavy without a partner. I would also bring my 5x 10-arcminute Sokkia sight level in a brand new hard shell case. Even if the dGPS didn’t work I could still get measurements with this, so I still had some redundancy.

Thursday morning I drove up to Diablo. I had emailed north cascades national park in advance to request a permit to access the zone from this trailhead. I parked at the Sourdough Lookout Trailhead and was moving around 7:30am. The Volken ski guidebook entry for the Pickets traverse recommends breaking this approach up into two seven-hour days to McMillan Creek. I usually can shave a few hours off those times, so estimated around 12 hours to camp in one day. This would have me hitting the north face descent in the evening when it would be getting a little bit of sun and would hopefully be soft enough to ski.

I made good time up the trail, which had been logged out since the most recent fire. I hit first snow at the national park boundary at 4000ft and then it became continuous at 4400ft. There I stashed my hiking boots tied to a tree branch and continued skinning.

The trees were nice and open and progress was quick and easy. I followed the broad ridge until it narrowed to a knife edge at 5600ft, where I traversed around left. I then continued to Peak 6308 and farther along the ridge. Interestingly, while the ridge appears gentle and smooth on the map, I encountered many steep snow faces carved out by the wind. These do not show up no the topo maps and took a bit of care to get through since the north faces were always icy.

By Stetattle Ridge north peak I stopped for a lunch break around 1:30pm. There were many enormous cornices overhanging the east side of the ridge. I got a good view of East Fury and it appeared the ice summit was now the highest point on the peak! I took a few zoomed in pictures for photographic analysis just in case I couldn’t get to the summit. I’ve learned mountaineering-surveying trips rarely go exactly according to plan, so it’s good to try for as many different measurement techniques as possible.

By 2pm I was skiing down from the summit in nice corn about 1800ft  down to the Elephant Butte col at 4900ft. It was disappointing to lose so much elevation just to have to regain it again. But that is the tradeoff for a route that stays high with good views and avoids bushwhacking. From the col I tried to follow low-angle slopes up the east ridge of Elephant Butte. I at times had to take my skis off and kick steps up, and this made progress slow.

Eventually I crested a shoulder at 6200ft and wrapped around to the south side of Elephant Butte. By then the snow got soft and the skiing was fun. I made a gentle descending traverse on mellow slopes, stopping on the way at the base of a small cliff to top off my water bottles with some easy melt water. I crossed the gully below Peak 6889 at a weakness at 5300ft, then crossed the cliff band below Rhino Butte at 6000ft. From there I made an easy traverse to the access col just west of point 6455 by 6pm.

There I had a great view of East Fury. I took a break and some pictures, then got ready for the descent. The ridge was corniced near the col, but just a little higher to the west it was uncorniced and offered easy passage. I started off in crampons since I wasn’t sure if it would be icy or not. But I found soft snow, since it was getting evening sun as expected. So I switched to skis and made fun turns down the mellow slope.  I soon traversed west below the north face of McMillan Spire, following the recommended route from the Volken guidebook.

However, at the base of McMillan spire I was stopped by a cracked up glacier. Above was a cliff and below was a cleft with cliffs on the edges. There was no way through. I did recall, however, one picture in the guidebook had a dashed line going directly down fromt the col, with the caption that there might exist a direct route (though unknown). I decided to give this a shot.

I traversed back to beneath the col, then descended through the trees below point 5024. This allowed me to get below a cliff band into a big bowl filled with avy debris. Below this bowl was another cliff band, but two outflows appeared from my map to maybe allow passage. I skied down to the east outflow, but this ended in a waterfall. Interestingly, the bushes getting down to the view of the waterfall appeared to have broken off branches like climbers had been there before.

It was dark by then and I resigned to the fact that I would likely have to bail. I had one last chance, though. I turned off my headlamp, cramponed back up, then scoped out the western drainage. This one was clogged up with so much avy debris that it had turned into an easy snow ramp! I easily marched down in the dark, then followed the avy debris to the base of the valley. I then skied a short distance in the slushy snow to the edge of trees on McMillan Creek. That was a safe place to camp with easy running water, and I set up my mega mid for the night around 10pm. I think if I had immediately taken this route down I would have indeed gotten to camp in around 12 hours, but the routefinding added a few hours delay. I was in bed by 11pm.

Friday

The route up East Fury mostly faces south, meaning it would get soft by late morning. Friday was supposed to be warmer than Thursday, and I would ideally be back to camp by noon before the snow got too soft and avalanche risk increased. I didn’t want to get back too early, though, since in the early morning the face would be icy and not skiable. This kind of spring temperature pattern requires careful timing to ascend when the slope is icy and easy cramponing, then descend when it is just starting to soften but isn’t too soft.

My plan was then to summit around 8am, take a 1-hour measurement, then descend at 9am and be back to camp around 10am-11am. I usually estimate 1000ft per hour ascent in good snow conditions. So with a 5000ft ascent that meant starting at 3am. Unfortunately that would not be as much sleep as I had hoped for.

I was up and moving by 3am as planned. I started by cramponing up the avy debris pile at the base of the southeast gully of East Fury. There was one waterfall in the middle that just had a narrow snow ramp on the side that might not last much longer. Above that I reached the 4000ft basin and encountered my first route finding challenge. The Volken book says getting out of this basin is the crux of the Pickets traverse, and requires finding a snow ramp that may or may not exist. I hadn’t done enough research to know exactly where the snow ramp was, though based on pictures I’d taken from the access col I knew it certainly was not on the north or east sides.

It was hard to tell in the dark, so I started up the first ramp I encountered on the left side. This ended up going way too high and cliffed out. I descended, then tried the next ramp. This one ended at an icy waterafall, so I retreated again.

By then there was engouh daylight that I could finally see. The next ramp, at the far northwest corner of the basin, appeared to have continuous steep snow and ended at trees. So I proceeded. I frontpointed up with my whippet and made a few delicate moves on thin ice and rock, but eventually crested shoulder at the top of the basin around 5200ft. The ramp was deep, narrow, and shaded enough facing northeast that it would likely only see a few hours of sun in the morning and likely stay nice and icy for me to downclimb.

Above the basin the snow was still nice and icy, and I cramponed up and right. Around 6000ft I reached the toe of the Fury Glacier and hugged the right edge, then went up a steep non-glacier snow face on the right to gain my October route. This route minimized time on the glacier and was safe at the lowest-snow time of year, so it would be very safe now at the highest-snow time of year when all crevasses were completely filled in and I was travelling on skis when the snow was icy.

I cramponed steeply up the face to 7200ft, then traversed onto the glacier. It was nice and smoothed over, but low enough angle for progress to be fast. Up at the 7800ft shoulder I transitioned to skis and ski crampons, then traversed over to the west side near Fury Finger. There the terrain steepened so I put crampons back on and angled up and right to get past the bergschrund. I cramponed up towards the east ridge, but then noticed it was a big cornice overhanging the north face. So I traversed west below the face until I popped up right at the ice summit at 8:30am.

Interestingly, the ice summit was a big snow dome (not corniced), and now it was obviously higher than the rock summit. That was sort of unexpected, since it is so much shorter in the summer now. I quickly set up the dGPS on the 1ft tripod on the summit, then started taking pictures. By 9am I checked my phone, which was using a bluetooth connection to the antenna, and it had stopped logging data for some reason! I had it in my pocket to keep it warm, and I must have accidentally touched a button. So I restarted the data logging and this time put the phone in a protective case next to the antenna. I continued taking pictures then with my backup phone.

The views were excellent, with the southern pickets very rugged, and West Fury corniced and intimidating. I still need to climb that one. To the north Challenger had a huge glacier extending east, and I could make out most of the remaining Pickets traverse from there. If the weather window had been longer I’d considered doing the whole traverse, but it didn’t really make sense with just a two-day good window.

I soon got out my Abney level and measured angular inclinations/declinations between the rock and ice summits. Interestingly, the rock summit was exposed, even though the ice summit was significantly higher than before. I measured the ice summit was 3.5ft taller than the rock summit, and this would later be confirmed after processing the dGPS data.

By 10am I’d logged the standard 1 hour measurement, then packed up and headed down. The very top was a bit too steep for me to want to ski, so I cramponed down a short ways. Then around 8200ft I put the skis on. I was a bit later than hoped for with the routefinding delay and the dGPS logging error, but the snow was just starting to get soft up high. I skied fun corn down the glacier, making dollar signs around my up tracks. As I got lower the corn changed to slush, and it was very slushy down at 5200ft above my access gully. I guess it’s not really possible to get perfect snow conditions over the full 3000ft descent, but I got pretty close.

I downclimbed the access ramp, which was still icy as expected. Then I cramponed down the avy debris to camp by noon, just about on schedule. The weather was sunny and hot then, and by many metrics the weather was great. But it was too warm for me to exit, unfortunately. The exit face was getting sun now and would stay in the sun until evening. The snow would be way to soft to exit at that hour.

That meant I would just have to spend the afternoon relaxing in camp. It was probably one of the most scenic places to camp in washington, though, with a great view of the southern pickets looming above. There were some melted out rocks on the creek shore, so I took off my boots, hung up my socks and snow pants in sun to dry, and rested on the rocks admiring the view. I then moved to the tent and took a nap (my previous two nights had just been 4 hrs and 2.5 hrs sleeping, so I needed to make up some of the deficit.

I got up in the evening to cook dinner, then went back to sleep around 6pm.

Saturday

There were supposed to be rain/snow showers in the morning, but clearing in the afternoon. My goal was to hit the access col at 9am when the southern faces would get soft enough to ski. So I was up and moving by 5am. I skinned up to the avy debris, then cramponed up to the basin. The snow was very soft, and this was likely because of the warm temperatures the previous day followed by a cloudy night, which didn’t allow for as much refreezing.

I skinned up out of the basin through the trees, and soon got to the edge of treeline around 5000ft. There I noticed the screws on my ski bindings were loose. I took out my leatherman to tighten them, and continued. Higher up the snow got icier as expected, and progress was fast. But the screws kept loosening on my bindings. Finally I used a ski strap to lash one of the bindings on after tightening the screws.

By 9am I crested the access col as planned, and it was lightly snowing and a bit windy. At the col I noticed three of the screws had popped completely out of one of the bindings! Something must have been mess up with the threads, and I had no way to ensure that the screws would stay in on either ski. This was problematic since my planned exit route required probably six more hours of skiing on a ridge. But if even more screws wiggled out, I didn’t really have enough ski straps to attach my boot to my skis.

Within a few hours the snow would become soft enough that cramponing or booting wouldn’t really work. I’d be postholing too much. It appeared that if I stayed on the ridge I would likely reach a point where I no longer trusted my bindings, but by then bailing would be difficult.

One option would be to bail right there down to the valley and bushwhack out. This had the advantage that I was at the lowest point along the ridge, and there was a low-angle route down to the trees that appeared easy and safe. On my map there existed a Stetattle Creek trail going deep into the valley. It appeared to be only a few miles bushwhack to that trail, which would then provide easy access back to the same trailhead.

I would have to bushwhack out in my ski boots, but I’ve hiked long distances on bare ground in them before and I knew it would work. I would then have to retrieve my hiking boots back up the Sourdough trail, but I had trail runners stashed in the truck for that.

To make the decision even easier, the weather appeared to not be clearing as expected, and the Stetattle Ridge exit as planned appeared to likely be socked in a whiteout the rest of the day. So I decided to bail down to the valley.

I cramponed down until the snow softened, then lashed my bad binding on with two ski straps and tighted my other binding as much as possible. The ski straps were flexible enough that my boot would pop out if I tried to turn, and the staps on the bottom dug into the snow. But in the slushy snow I could glide forward or side slip sideways. I slowly made progress down to treeline, then through the trees. I carefully followed my shaded relief map on caltopo to hit the mellow slopes.

Near the exit of Azure Lake the trees got dense enough that I changed to bare boots. I postholed down, finally reaching a flat basin around 2600ft. I ended up breaking a whippet pole in the process, but the remaining segment was still long enough to use like a cane.

At the edge of snow line I delayered off my snow pants and topped off water in a creek. I then started in nice open woods, but that didn’t last long. I soon hit an slide alder thicket, and this was as dense as it gets in Washington. The skis on my back didn’t help, but at least I was travelling mostly with the grain downhill. After an hour I managed to power through it and was met with nice old growth forest again.

Travel was fast, and the ski boots weren’t that annoying to walk in. I beelined for the marked trail on my maps. It was odd to me that a trail would just dead endin in the valley like the maps showed. The only time I’ve seen this happen before is when it ends at an old mining cabin, like up in Silver Creek near the Canada border. So I was optimistic maybe I’d hit an old cabin!

Unfortunately, that was not the case. I made it to the end of the marked trail, but there was no trail. I crossed the supposed trail up and down many times, and verified that it in fact did not exist. That was disappointing, but at least the forest was nice and open and travel was quick. It was quick, at least, until I hit a recent burn zone shortly after the marked trail end.

That slowed down progress a lot with so many fallen trees to crawl over. I still tried to approximately follow the old trail location, hoping that maybe there would be a few sawed out trees there. But I never saw a single sign of the trail. Progress slowed to a crawl, and my watch seemed to be moving a lot faster than my GPS odometer.

Finally, when I was within about one mile of I stumbled across faint remnants of the old trail, and then I saw a burnt log that had been freshly sawed. That was excellent news! It meant someone had logged out up to there after the fire, so the trail would likely be in good shape.

Indeed, from there to the end the trail was cruiser, and my speed tripled to nearly 3 miles an hour (even in ski boots). I made excellent time, reaching the truck by 6:30pm. I very quickly threw the gear in the truck, switched to my trail runners, and started up the Sourdough trail with just a nalgened and a rain jacket.

I had scarfed down a bunch of trail mix just before, and I felt like I was flying up the trail with no pack weight and no clunky ski boots on. I climbed up 3300ft in a little over an hour, and found my stashed boots just at sunset. I then hustled back down to the truck and drove out. I was momentarily very worried when there was a closed gate blocking the bridge out over Stetattle Creek. But as I pulled closer it automatically opened. I was then home free and driving back by 9:30pm.

I later processed the dGPS measurement and found the ice summit is 8325.0ft +/-0.1ft NGVD29. This is consistent with the Abney level measurement and with the photo showing the ice summit taller than the rock summit. Interestingly, the late summer 2022 Lidar measurement of the ice summit had it at 8303ft. This means the ice summit melts down about 23ft from max height in spring to min height in late summer.

I later brought my skis to the shop and it appeared somehow the screws had gotten loose enough on a previous trip that water had seeped in. This then rotted the core and messed up the threads. So now the screws won’t hold and the core is messed up enough that I need new skis unfortunately.

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