Every Wednesday since the days got long enough to get out after work tours, Rob had been talking about skiing McClellan. I guess we finally got around to it, because on this Wednesday I found myself bumping around in the front of a Toyota Tacoma heading up NF-9021. There was no snow to be found on the road, so we pulled over somewhere on FS-110 where we would only need to bushwack straight up the fall-line of the couloir. Rob only had sandals, as he expected to find snow lower, so he left the truck in his ski boots. I guess if the weather is nice enough for sandals, you should bring trail shoes.

After an initial boulder field, we ran into a section of thick and mossy deadfall that required some intricate tree scrambling and schwacking with packs that seemed to catch on everything. I had forgotten how much fun spring skiing could be! We untangled ourselves from the bramble and crossed one final boulder field where we found the first patch of snow.

I ditched my shoes in the trees once we found our way through to continuous snow. We looked up the couloir and started the long boot, noting that the couloir didn’t look as steep as we had anticipated.

Rob kicked the steps most of the way up, with me staying quiet so I could avoid the kicking, until the kicks came with complaints. We weaved our way up the S-shaped couloir fairly quickly, and got to a small basin before the top section of the S got steeper and headed towards the trees along the ridge. We noticed an old skin-track coming from the northern side of the upper basin, where there’s a smaller couloir that terminates much higher. Anyone who came up that way likely had a much harder time.

Soon we reached the top of the couloir where it ended at a rocky outcrop, and it was time to ski. The first turns were the steepest, and Rob and I had argued on the way up about the steepness of that section. I said 40° and he said closer to 50°. I had forgotten my slope meter, so we’ll have to come back to settle that one.

The turns from the top were perfectly soft, and whether 40° or 50°, they were incredible. The snow was loose, but stable and did not run on any interface. After skiing the steepest part of the couloir, we commented on how loud the slope was behind us. Nothing propagated for us, but the thousands of loose large-grain snow pellets rolling slowly down the slope sung a sustained song of “shhhh”.

After enjoyable turns from top to bottom, I grabbed my shoes, and we skied a bit further than we needed to over barely supportable snow bridges. When we took our skis off, our bases were covered in a thick black coat of pollen. Well, guess I’m due for a base cleaning anyways, and it was worth it for the great 2000ft+ run. Just a little more bushwhacking to get back to the car…