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Winter Scramble - 5050 pass

Found the best fresh light deep powder snow I've seen in years

Dave Schultz Dave Schultz
December 14, 2021
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • A few minor trees down on trail,  the beginning of trail not as well marked off the Dose road as in past. Last mile or so of  potholed road navigable by  any vehicle with a bit of caution. A bit more challenging on our exit due to the 5 or so inches of snow that fell during our trip.

I listed the Sat trip with a Friday or Sunday option. By Wed. I decided to switch to Sunday to take advantage of the new snow after a predicted storm Friday night thru Saturday left us with 2 ft of new snow and a freezing level dropping from 4k Friday to 500ft by Sunday morning. The route is in relatively safe avy terrain. However 3 in our group had turned around on a previous trip here in the spring due to a loose wet avalanche, detailed in one of my previous trip reports.  

After a pretrip , and avy discussion our group of 7 headed out at 7:40am to find a dusting of snow by 800 ft. One of our new scramblers decided to remove a base layer, as our steep accent got under way, a full zip pant shell is a more practical option on a trip covering this kind of distance with a gain of  1300ft a mile.

Snow shoes went on at 10:30am at 3600ft.  Snow depth went from 2 ft to 3 ft + by 4500ft, all fresh within the last 2 days , a falling freezing level  gave us a right side up snow pack.  My probe found no Nov. base  or crust.  The snow drifts much deeper from the high wind events Friday night and Saturday. We referred to our upper part of the journey as swimming in snow.   Our last 20 ft of gain was a steep slope, with deep snow my nose touched the snow in front as I knocked snow down with my poles parrallel to the surface pulling myself up those last hard fought steps. We found a flat spot for a quick bite to eat and a clothing change, heading down at our 1 pm turn around time. Some wore there snowshoes down to 2500 ft.  Back at the TH by 4:30 with 3" of snow on our cars.