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Alpine Scramble - Breccia Peak

Fantastic views all around but unexpectedly high snow levels and warming temperatures stopped us short of planned goal

Frank Miles Frank Miles
May 05, 2019
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • We ran into snow early: spotty by 3700', solid by 4000'.  With little more than an occasional thin cloud layer the initially solid snow slowly became mushy by mid-day.   We minimized avy risk by shifting as much of our travel to ridges, but there are some areas where this isn't an option.  When we found that the route we'd been following led to a corniced drop-off (immediately west of Sunup Lake) we had to backtrack.  Could we could achieve our goal without taking so much time that our exit would risk avalanche?  Lacking confidence the answer was obvious.

The N Fork Sauk road to the TH has a couple significant divots, but good-clearance SUVs shouldn't have any problem.

I called the trip "successful" to reward the students who had to use good snow travel skills in a variety of snow conditions and slopes.  It was a more challenging trip than I expected.