Seattle SIG Practices and Conditioners - Teanaway Butte

A great day with a lot of sun, some clouds, no precipitation, and no wind except for light breezes on the summits.  We put on snowshoes right at the start; one pair fell apart but we had a spare pair to use.  We followed the Jungle Creek Road for ten minutes over the N Fork Teanaway to a junction with a bridge over Jungle Creek.  Here one can veer hard left on another road or continue ahead on the Rye Creek road, which we did.  We followed the Rye Creek road to 3200' then left it to gain a ridge extending NE from Tarzan Butte.  Tarzan Butte had the steepest slopes of the trip.  One skier in the group made a gentle track to the summit with snowshoers following.  About 1h45m from cars to the Tarzan Butte summit.  Snow coverage was thin at this summit.  From there we descended the SW ridge, also steep, to a saddle at about 3500'.  Then we ascended to point 3910, continued up the ridge, then followed another old road for a short section, then back into the trees heading towards the saddle between two points which are about 4500' and 4600' in elevation.  Before reaching this saddle we intersected another old road which leads all the way to just before the Teanaway Butte summit.  There is an open slope to climb that leads to the summit proper.  Great views here and also the old footings of a former lookout.  A bit over two hours from Tarzan Butte summit to Teanaway Butte summit.  We stayed for 40 minutes then followed the road back to the saddle between the 4500' and 4600' points, then left the road to descend to Liar's Prairie.  The skier in the group got in some great turns during the first 1000' of descent from the summit, but less below that.  We descended a little too far to skier's right towards the prairie but corrected course to find FS 9701, the Jungle Creek Road.  Then we followed that for four plus miles back to the cars.  The road walk is nice to start but the last few miles are flat and a bit of a trudge.  About three hours from Teanaway Butte summit to the cars, and about 8 hours car-to-car overall.  This is a great Winter outing with drier snow and better weather and generally safer avalanche conditions as the route is almost entirely below treeline.