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Alpine Scramble - Teebone Ridge/Southwest Spur (winter)

Successful sunny 5,000 ft elevation gain Christmas Eve Day up Teebone Ridge .

Rodica Manole Rodica Manole
December 24, 2016
  • Road recommended for high clearance only

  • Snow started from TH but we didn't put the snowshoes on first 700 ft up. We had a light broken trail all way up at the top of the clearing and from there trail breaking was on our group of 7. As soon as we passed the creek, we took the mellow ridge located on its left and follow it all way up to point 4800. From there we followed the T Ridge up to about 6200 ft. Pretty straight forward going until we got up above 5500 ft, where dry snow started to trigger some minor challenges in steeper sections (we were sliding and compressed steps were crumbling).

Temperatures were below freezing lower on the route and in teens up on ridge. Unexpected blue skies and clear, amazing views from the ridge made this  outing very enjoyable. Cascade River road was plowed to Lookout Mountain TH, but the wide shoulder used for parking was not. We were able to drive onto the unpacked snow with our 2 AWD cars. I would not recommend low clearence vehicles trying to do what we did. Total time was slightly less than 8 hours with ~5 hours up, and ~2 1/2 h hours down.