Tamarack Peak Backountry Conditions Report: Nov 24

There comes a time in every skier’s life where they must ask themselves “is it worth it?” My answer is almost always yes, but there are days that put it to the test! Good company, good adventure, and good exercise can more than compensate for some not-so-great skiing. That being said, today was a lot of fun. I went out to Tamarack Peak with Kirk Ditterich, Tom Connell, and Ret Entwisle to ski Hourglass Bowl.

The skin up was a schralpy mix of roots, rocks, dirt, bushes, and a little bit of snow. In retrospect, we probably should have just booted up. We did make it to the top without taking our skis off, though. When we got up there, we noticed one lone pair of tracks down Hourglass. I’m curious to know who else decided to brave the low-tide snow.

Skiing the bowl itself was great for at least a few turns, in pretty soft snow about 4-7″ deep. Yes, you’d hit some rocks here and there scattered among the scree, but nothing too awful. It really started to get nasty down toward the choke at the bottom of the bowl. We started cutting out to the right side, and picked our way down through some exposed rocky areas and slowly side-hilled our way back to our skin track. Once there, we hiked back down to the car.

I’ll emphasize that this was a very rocky endeavor. If you care even remotely about your skis, wait until it snows more to head up, as they will not make it out unscathed. Whatever, it was a fun day!