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Trip Report    

Intermediate Alpine Climb - Mount Angeles/East Face (winter)

Mt Angeles Winter Route attempt.

  • Road suitable for all vehicles
  • Dug a pit at 5,200 feet to access avalanche concern. Decided to decend and climb hurricane hill.

Gate didn't open till 0900. There was parking at thrailhead for about 3 cars. There was a lot of loose wet avalanches on Saturday. Debris fields and pinwheels. We knew the risk would build during the day as it heated up.  The snow was more than 3 meters deep.  At the beginning of the route there was a 10 cm crust on top that made travel with snow shhoes easy.  At about 4,500 feet that crust was becoming weak and we were breaking through. There was about 50 cm of loose snow under the crust and upward progress was significantly reduced. We dug a pit at 5,200 feet and decided to decend.  There were a number of layers that failed.  The most concerning was at 100 cm where there was a icy crust. The top 100 cm came off easier at that interface then we liked.  The car sized pinwheels from Saturday were adequate to impact this deeper layer.  We will return in a couple weeks. We ran out Hurrican Hill for a couple miles to complete outrare sunny day.