Royal Skiing in the Olympics
Dates: 4/10/21-4/11/21
It feels like spring ski season here in the PNW! After a winter that required me to postpone or cancel ski trip after ski trip due to storms or dangerous avalanche conditions, winter has finally seemed to have relinquished its hold to spring.
A few months ago, our friend Nate invited Alex and me to go on a spring trip with him into the Olympics for a snowy ascent of Mount Deception or a circumnavigation of Mount Deception, whichever seemed like the better option when we got there. We both eagerly agreed to the trip and looked forward to for the remainder of the season.
Unfortunately, Alex was put on pager duty the weekend we had planned to go so he was forced to stay home in case any important tickets came in at work. But Nate had found a small group of adventurers who would join us: Camille, Jake, and David. We decided to dedicate a whole weekend to the area, which turned out to be wholly too little time to spend in such a massive skiing area.
We not only underestimated the amount of time we would want to spend in the area, but we also underestimated how long it would be to reach Royal Basin. The trail (we followed the summer trail) was about 8 miles with just over 3,000’ of gain from the trailhead to the basin. We had anticipated a mile or two in ski boots and then we hoped we be able to transition to skinning the rest of the way, so we decided to forgo approach shoes. What we encountered was a dry and then icy trail for over five miles. Hiking that far in ski boots was less than ideal (lesson learned!), but after about six hours of hiking/skinning we made it to camp at Royal Basin. We set up camp, began to boil water for dinner, and watched a party make their way up the NE Couloir (another objective we had our eye on).
We had hoped that we might be able to drop our packs at camp and continue up to the summit of Mount Deception, but we were all feeling exhausted from the hike in. As we ate our dinners we talked about our options for the next day. We were constrained by time with a few of us having obligations on Sunday evening, and were worried about how long the hike out would take given how long the hike in took. We decided that any summit or couloir attempts were out of the question for this trip. We also decided to plan a repeat trip here in 2022 and dedicate three to four days in the area since the opportunities for great ski lines in the basin are endless!
The next morning we awoke at 6AM, just in time to watch the sun paint the walls of the basin the brightest shades of pink and orange. After a quick breakfast we set out to ski a couple fun slopes we had all been eyeing from camp. We may have not gotten a summit, circumnavigation, or couloir in, but the trip was still beautiful!
After a fun morning skiing we packed up and left camp around noon. As we made our way toward the trailhead, I enjoyed watching the terrain seemingly change from winter to spring in a few miles. We began the descent in the high alpine, surrounded by snow-covered peaks and ridges, but just a few hours later we were in the depths of a lush forest walking along a babbling river.
No matter the season, it’s always a treat to spend time in the backcountry of the Olympics!
