The Central Cascades Traverse (CCT) has been high on the hit list for over 5 years. It began the spring of 2002 on a tour through various headwaters of the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie. Then in 2003 as we stood atop Glacier Peak looking south, Peter and I knew we must attempt to ski across the Central Cascades. The traverse was linked quite clearly starting west from the high peaks of Snoqualmie Pass through the expansive whiteness of the Daniel-Hinman massif on through the Wenatchee Mountains to finally finish amongst the granite-laden Stuart Range. From that day on, we started the CCT scheming.

The trip required some logistics: time, snowpack, and us being in the country. Finally this season was go-time. We had always envisioned this tour happening during sunny spring days with a reliable freeze/thaw snowpack. However, Peter becomes a father towards the end of May and his supportive wife had valid reason to want him around. So, our scheduled window was late April. Due to unfavorable weather conditions on the western slopes, we decided to start in the Enchantments and end on Snoqualmie Pass.

Robo dropped us off on the Icicle Creek Road on the morning of April 22^nd. The sky was deep blue and we were thinking starting on the sunny side of the Cascades was going to reap rewards. A few hours further up the Rat Creek drainage, the weather turned to that which was consistently hitting home on Snoqualmie Pass: clouds, wind, and eventually snow. Not wanting to get stymied by too much snow for a safe climb up from Coney Lake to Canon Mt the next morning, we pushed on. Almost 7000’ above our start, we reached Canon Mt. in a windy whiteout. With skins and compass still in use, we quickly got down to the Lost World Plateau and over to our desired descent towards Prussik Pass. We enjoyed increased visibility and a couple sections of powder turns amongst larch trees before finally setting up our first camp above Perfection Lake.

We awoke to four inches of new snow and began touring through the Enchantments. There were a couple moments when the sun won the battle and we caught glimpses of our snow filled neighbors, most notably Prussik & MacClellan Peaks. Due to continued winter conditions, we chose to abort hopes of tagging Colchuck and Dragontail and elected for the more familiar descent from Asgaard Pass to Colchuck Lake. We took advantage of some brief sight distance and floated through cold smoke all the way down to the lake. We sipped tee and admired our turns waiting for the giggles to wear off. Then we roughed a nasty descent down to Mountaineers Creek where we filled up on water and tore layers off as the sun came out. Just a few minutes later we layered back up and toured through snow showers up to camp at Lake Stuart.

Never seeing the upper half of Mt. Stuart, we discarded plans of traveling over Goat Pass and chose a more direct route over Jack Ridge via Jack Lake. In winter fashion, the visibility shut down and the wind picked up as we climbed higher. We booted over the rocky ridgeline and safely navigated down a few inches of wind-consolidated snow on a firm crust. Once down to Jack Creek, we snacked and then started a long valley day. Once more, the weather and snow conditions turned us away from our intended exploration up and over Harding Mt. Instead, we opted for the creek cruising day and skied down Jack Creek and then up Meadow Creek to the southern base of The Cradle. Consistent with each morning thus far, we awoke to new snow on the Megamid. But soon the clouds dispersed and the sky appeared to want to remain mostly clear. Odd. Through a satellite phone call, we got a weather update that the next couple days looked cloudless. We relished in the thought of seeing our surroundings and quickly headed west determined to spend the big alpine day on Daniel and Hinman in the sunshine.

We spotted a gorgeous basin on the east side of Granite Mt we wanted to climb. Before entering this basin we toured across the first set of tracks we’d seen on the trip. I pondered different possibilities, “Maybe they are snowshoe tracks…no too small. They look like boot tracks…but way out here?” They turned out to be from a bear who either didn’t have the strength to lift it’s legs out of the snow or was simply too heavy to do so.

Soon we were climbing above tree line. In addition to the decent weather, being back in the high country increased our stokage! We continued north over a ridge and then climbed the NE basin to crest the ridge and reach Granite’s summit. For the first time of the trip we could see the top of Mt. Stuart and where we began the morning before. The northern flanks of the Wenatchee range boasted tons of attractive skiing that would have to wait for another trip. To the south was the almighty Rainier and obstructing most of the view to the west sat the snow-packed NE aspects of Mt. Daniel. Grande!

We began our descent with great curiosity and satisfaction. We were satisfied that we put ourselves into a position to get Daniel and Hinman on an expected good weather day. We were curious about our descent down to Hyas Lake and if the bucket of food I cached a month ago would still be there. Curiosity and uncertainty often result in surprises and we experienced the beneficial side for both revelations. We skied dry unconsolidated powder on the descent down to upper Robin Lake and then soft spring turns down the west side of Granite. Equally exhilarating was discovering the food cache was unhampered! We set camp and consumed as many calories as we could.

Early the next morning we started skinning up a chasm into the huge NE basin and eventually onto the summit of Mt. Daniel. Glacier Peak beamed to the north and Peter starting pointing its direction and saying things like “that’s next, the NCCT” and “then there’s the NCT.” We scoped out a safe entrance onto the Lynch Glacier and began a long descent down to Pea Soup Lake. Mt. Daniel definitely separates itself from the rest of the Central Cascades by its expansive alpine acreage. Feeling like I was closer to the Chugach range than my backyard, we slid through glacial powder without a tree in site.

From Pea Soup Lake, we descended west on firm snow down to the bottom of a gully separating Mt. Daniel from Mt. Hinman. We toured up this wind funnel and then accessed the NE side of Hinman. Except for having fewer rock towers around, the wide-open whiteness was similar to that found on Daniel. We got into a trance-like zone of skinning. I admired Glacier Peak thinking of the day we were on it’s top thinking about doing what we were doing right now. Peter was reciting a self-motivational mantra: “I am light, I am strong.” Whether the mantra helped or not, Peter’s strength was evident as I observed his relentless pace up the mountain. A reliable partner to get things done in the mountains, Peter is the type of guy who gains strength during these multi-day marathons.

Reaching the summit, we admired the ruggedness of the Snoqualmie Pass high peaks and sensed a connection to finishing the traverse. We traversed west off the summit, skied some steep breakable crud above La Bohn Lakes and then sloshed through soupy snow past Williams Lake to a nice opening safe from any wet slide runouts. It was only 4:00 and we basked in the afternoon sunshine: gear dried out, bare toes breathed, and multiple freeze-dried meals were consumed. We enjoyed our only open bivy and woke up early to beat the onslaught of wet slides we were expecting.

Touring up the valley under the north side of Summit Chief was as spectacular as ever. Snow and ice gripped its rocky veins displaying that the present warming was an oddity in this long winter. At Summit Chief Col, we continued touring towards Overcoat Col hoping we could avoid a descent and climb back up under the east side of Chimney Rock. We climbed to the ridge that borders the east side of Overcoat Glacier until we hit a dead end. Falling west onto the glacier or south onto steep slopes were a couple rappel options that both required more rope length than we carried. We easily decided to ski down to the south and tour back up under Chimney’s eastern flanks. After 2500’ of safely sliding over bulletproof conditions to the bottom of the basin, we were relieved to be skinning again as we climbed up to Overcoat Col. We skied directly off the Col towards Iceberg Lake in favorable conditions: a huge snowpack limited the amount of exposed rock and the heat of the day had softened the snow.

Knowing the heat was going to start causing havoc in our surroundings, the rest of this day was all about safe speeding. We toured south from Iceberg Lake to a notch under the Lemahs where we quickly traversed one at a time to the outfall of Chikamin Lake. Here we found a safe spot and enjoyed some lunch while listening to the thunderous slides around us, most frequently from the rocky southern slopes of Burntboot Peak. We knew it wouldn’t be safe to ski south off Chikamin any time soon so extended our break. Late in the afternoon we toured up Chikamin’s north side to set camp and take a peak at our descent. Views from the summit ridge were spectacular and for the first time I was reversing the view out my condo window. We eyed our expected route under Huckleberry past Alaska towards the Kendall Catwalk and admired a ton of snow still remaining on the lower peaks west of us.

The next morning we awoke early for a less saturated descent off Chikamin. While the temperature did decrease overnight and the snow stiffened up a bit, the temperature was not cold enough to freeze the H20 falling from the sky. This was not good for the remainder of the traverse as we were camped higher than we would be at any future point west. With this in mind, plus the fact I allowed the wind to blow away the necessary maps, we chose to exit via the Gold Creek valley.

Picking our way through clouds and cliff bands, we navigated down the southwest side of Chikamin. Far from the methodology I have always envisioned while gawking out my window towards this aesthetic face, our descent consisted of careful sidestepping and long traverses. Once down on the bench northeast of Huckleberry, we safely sloshed down towards Joe Lake and finally the valley bottom. Due to a supersaturated snowpack that was still gaining water content, there was little ski success along Gold Creek. We stuck on our skins one last time and began the long waltz home. Ignoring the rain through thoughts of long sought after accomplishment, soon enough we saw the only other person we had seen since we began six days earlier: Robo our taxi driver.