Gopher Mountain (8,001 ft)
On the summit
Nov 18, 2023
18 miles, 6000ft gain, 3:30am – 7pm
Our goal was to get some ski mountaineering in before winter, and we planned to ski Gopher Peak. This is a WA Top 200 peak in the entiat area with a fun southwest face to ski. I had previously skied it in April 2020 on a solo trip.
The Entiat River Road was driveable all the way to Cottonwood trailhead with no need for the snowmobile. There were about 6 in of snow at the end but no problem for the truck.
The route
We left 3:45am Saturday morning and walked for 10 minutes until the snow got deep enough to skin. From there we made good time skinning up the trail. By sunrise we reached the wilderness boundary and then left the trail heading up to the east. It was a bit tricky getting over blowdowns down low, but the terrain got easier above 5600ft.
We continued up the SE side of Choral Creek and then followed the southwest face of Gopher to the summit by early afternoon. I found my signin from 2020 and added our names to the register. Then we skied back down.
We encountered basically every possible type of snow. It was icy on top, then breakable crust, then slush, then down in the basin it turned to powder. We made good time, reaching the bad blowdowns at 4400ft by sunset. We postholed down to the trail, then skinned out to the truck by 7pm.
© 2023, egilbert@alum.mit.edu. All rights reserved.
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