Trip Report
Winter Scramble - Amabilis Mountain
Great destination for a high avalanche danger day.
Turner Bluechel
- Sat, Jan 11, 2020
- Winter Scramble - Amabilis Mountain
- Amabilis Mountain
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Snow and ice on road
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This was a day with heavy amounts of new snow. We made our way through the cabin creek cross country area keeping to the sides as to not disturb the cross country ski tracks. About 200 yards up forest road 4822 we went off trail uphill through the trees staying on the ridge as much as possible. We crossed the snow covered road three times in the first 400 vertical feet and headed up to approx 3840 ft where rejoined the road and followed it to near the summit. Snow was deep especially on some of the steeper sections in the trees. We retraced our steps for the descent.
We made it to the snow park shortly after 8am. The second car showed up about 5 minutes later. The road over Snoqualmie pass was snow covered for most of the way from the Tinkham exit on up. The greatest challenge was avoiding vehicles and drivers that weren't prepared for the road conditions.
We were geared up and left the snow park just after 8:25am. Once on route we quickly went to work breaking trail in the heavy snow. As one party member commented they felt like a human snow plow. The trees provided cover from the new snow that was falling most of the day. Nearing the summit the wind started to pick up and was stronger on our way down. This continued until we were back in the trees with good protection from the wind on our way down.
We had a successful outing with great group. Total time was just over 7 hours.