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发表于 2007-3-22 11:16:23
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Cloudburst Direct Ski via High Falls Creek by Vito Gudaitis
May 22, 2000 (1 days) Calculated Length: 0 km 92 G/14
Participants: John Gudaitis, Vito Gudaitis
Equipment: Ski gear
Difficulty: Ski to summit, minimal avalanche hazard
Abstract: This describes what is probably the easiest and most direct ski route to the summit of Cloudburst Mountain, from High Falls Creek. It may also be a good hiking route.
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After reading in the Bivouac web site that water bars had been removed from the High Falls Creek logging road, John and I decided to check the area out for late skiing possibilities. We had started up the road last year but my old Subaru wagon was bottoming out in the water bars, and we soon quit the attempt. Neither of us had been up Cloudburst Mountain, but we had long noted that the mountain seemed to offer attractive skiing terrain, visible from the highway to Whistler whenever the weather was clear.
On this holiday Monday, the weather was not the best; but we thought that it would be good enough for an exploratory trip into an area that is not too remote. After dodging a few logging trucks on the Squamish Main line, we went up Branch 200, beside High Falls Creek on the north side of the valley, and found the ascent to around 2000 feet elevation to be smooth and easy. Here the road flattens out and there is a fresh clearcut on the north side of the creek. Beyond the new clearcut the old main road has water bars, but a branch to the south crosses the creek and turns downstream to a new section of road which will undoubtedly result in another new clearcut this summer. The new road ends about 2.5 km past the bridge over High Falls Creek.
After noting that the new road actually loses some elevation from the creek crossing, we went back to check out all of the side roads branching off around the 2000 foot level. To our disgust, we found that every one of them has water bars. We could see that skiable snow was a long way up the roads on the north side of the valley, but was much closer on the south side, in the shadow of Cloudburst. There was a clearcut directly southeast of the bridge over High Falls Creek, and we guessed that the peak of Cloudburst was in the clouds almost directly above this clearcut.
On the south side of the creek, we could see three roads branching off to the left of what will soon be the new main road. The first branch is immediately after the creek crossing and appears to go to another clearcut area to the northeast; this clearcut stays low and did not seem to be worth investigating. We could see that the second branch, which has an overgrown and barely visible junction, went to the lower part of the clearcut we were interested in, but had no connection to higher roads visible in the clearcut. The third branch, which took off just before the main road started to drop toward the new part of the road, looked like the best bet, even though it was overgrown with saplings and had water bars.
This branch road proved to be exactly what we were looking for. It first went south, or southwest, and then switched back to the east, gaining elevation rapidly until we were near the top of the clearcut. We stopped (actually, got stuck) in a small patch of snow just before the road branches again. We were almost as high as the road goes and quite close to the high point of the clearcut.
We grabbed our skis and other gear and left the car in the snow, hoping it would melt out by the time we returned. It was already after 10:00, and we had no idea what it would be like to get to Cloudburst's peak. We went to the high point of the road and then angled back to the left to get to a valley with patchy snow at the high point of the clearcut. We could see that there was a small natural opening in the trees above this point, but there was a short break in the snow cover where the trees began.
We carried the skis to the bottom of the natural opening, crossing a small, steep creek to get to the left side of the valley and avoiding small cliffs on the right. Here we donned skis with skins and angled across the short opening to the upper right. At this point the valley flattened out, and we were in nice terrain with large, widely-spaced sub-alpine conifers. The snow was now continuous, even in the trees, and was firm, but not icy. Following the valley towards the south was easy, until it ended in a bench below what looked like a ridge.
From here we angled our way up a short, steep section, until we were on top of the small ridge. The ridge was very open, with only small patches of trees, and appeared to be heading towards the peak. This ridge proved to be an almost perfect route to the top, not very steep and with only a few small bumps and dips. The valley on the left looked like it offered nice ski runs, but we had no idea where it eventually led. To the right the valley was filled with avalanche debris. The source of the avalanches could be seen as conspicuous slab breaks under the cornice on the northwest side of the main ridge line on Cloudburst.
Fortunately, the cornice ended just to the right of the intersection of our small ridge with the main ridge. It appeared as if the cornice might sometimes extend further to the left, in which case you would probably have to get on to the ridge by veering to the left. Once on the top ridge, the peak is easily gained by turning right and following the gentle slope up to the high point. On this occasion, the peak itself was mostly in the clouds; and we had minimal views of our surroundings. However, it looked like good skiing terrain in all directions. At the peak, even the big cornice to the northwest was some distance away.
We were on the peak well before 1:30 and had lots of time, but there was no reason to tarry in the whiteout conditions. After lunch we took off the skins and followed our tracks back down to the clearcut, staying clear of the cornice which was exhibiting some obvious cracks. The snow was smooth and turns were easy and reasonably fast, considering the time of year. The route down the ridge was just about perfect, with lots of variations in pitch and only a couple of very short uphill stretches that could have been avoided if we wanted to. Seeing the tracks back through the trees was a little difficult, but the trees were spaced nicely for easy turns. In a very short time we were back to the bottom of the small clearing above the big clearcut. After carrying the skis down to the top of the clearcut, we were able to pick our way down through patches of snow right to the top of the short branch road that went off to the left from near our parking spot.
Then, back to the car, an hour of digging it out of the snow and down the mountainside to the good logging road. The spur up the clearcut is still in reasonable shape, but needs more traffic to keep it from getting totally overgrown with alders. The waterbars are reasonably far apart and the Subaru only scraped bottom a few times.
This turned out to be an excellent, direct route to the top of Cloudburst. I highly recommend it as a ski route. There is no bushy section; the only trees are large and nicely spaced. When the snow extends to the bottom of the clearcut, it provides 4000 vertical feet of high quality skiing, with no flat sections of any size and almost no avalanche hazard. Since the main road is just now being extended, it will probably be kept free of water bars for a while. This may also be a good hiking route, but that remains to be seen. |
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