Seattle Ridge Camp

11/29/24-11/20/24

A few successful missions up Seattle Ridge early in the 2024 season opened my eyes to how much terrain is accessible via the ridge. I’ve read many trip reports written by the greats about the skiing connected to the ridge; stories like Joe Stock’s telling of skiing TT43, Kyle McCrohan’s report on skiing Pyramid’s west face, and Mike Record’s stories on skiing Big Chief. These tales have stuck with me, but before this season I was weary to venture to the motorized side of Turnagain Pass. The slow snowfall at lower elevations this winter meant the snow machiners were not permitted to travel on their side until the snow had come in fatter, and that gave me plenty of opportunity to explore the vast assortment of skiing that is hiding on the Sunnyside. 

Cold temps at sea level were held in place by a warm inversion sitting above, and that inversion provided the perfect excuse to get out of the house and camp within the warmer air. Without any convincing, Raven and Jordan subscribed to the idea of camping on the ridge and agreed to join for the adventure. With no set plans on what we were going to ski, we decided to climb after work Friday to allow us to explore the ridge all weekend from our camp and decide what big line we wanted to check off most. We left from the weather station parking lot around 6pm and in no time we were on top of 0 Bowl and Main Bowl where the temps had risen from 5 degrees to 20 degrees. We headed a bit north and found a sheltered space within the trees to build our camp. The glow of Anchorage and Alyeska painted a haze in the skies north of us, with the Milky Way slowly rotating above us to the south. Hot drinks were enjoyed over chatter about what we may be skiing the next day. By the time we went to bed, our sights were set on Pyramid and its endless west face.

We had a slow morning, perfectly in sync with the low angle sun that can be relied on in November. After our oatmeal and coffee, we set off south on the ridge towards Pyramid. As we made out way down the ridge each bowl, new to me, revealed itself slowly transitioning from pink to red to golden as the morning sun crested over the surrounding hills. Each step led us closer to the ocean and further from the half decent snow we had under our feet the night prior. Each bowl we passed on our way to Pyramid Peak looked worse than the last, and as we got within range to get a good look at the snow on the west face, we were disappointed to find the face extremely wind scoured, and likely icey. We knew skiing the whole 3,000’ face was hopeful with the low tides that existed near sea level, but the sight of the upper face forced us to tuck our tails and abandon our mission. 

With our plans of scoring a big line out the window, we decided to check the maps for the longest nearby path down the east face of the ridge to enjoy some of the decent snow hiding in the trees. We managed to squeeze in a run over 1,000’ in vert through both spruce and alders, the Alaskan classic trees. After we finished our ski, we followed our tracks back up and agreed it was time to start working back to the tent. As we started skiing low angle powder back to our starting point for the day, clouds were quickly ushered in by strong winds.

One of the nicest things about being on Seattle Ridge is the access to phone service along most of the ridge. When we arrived back at our camp, we checked the forecast and it seemed things had taken a turn for the worst. With this in mind, we debated on staying or packing up. The low quality snow and deteriorating visibility inspired us to pack up shop and ski back to the car a day early.

While the trip was cut short and no real notable skiing was had, it served as a valuable day staying on top of our winter camping skills. With how smoothly things went at camp, it was a useful test of our partnership in an overnight setting, and gave us the confidence to begin exploring bigger and more logistically complex missions into the mountains.