Trip Report - Royal Basin Ski Trip - 5/29/21 - 6/1/21
Skiing Surprise Basin
Robby and I had spent months planning to ski the classic Isolation Traverse in late May, but a single storm dumped 1.5” of water equivalent just a day before we were planning to begin. After many many hours of deliberation, we bailed on that plan and found ourselves in Royal Basin on the Olympic Peninsula. It ended up being an incredible trip, despite having been pretty slapdash.
Over 5 days, we
stayed a night at Robby’s family cabin on the east side of the Olympics
lugged our gear up to Royal Basin
skied the steep Northeast Couloir of Mount Deception
skied Surprise Basin beneath the Needles
skied an unnamed 7,000’ peak
ate a bunch of freeze-dried chocolate cheesecake
I’m not going to write up a full report on the trip, but I wanted to post some photos, as well as a short photostory. First, the photostory -
Skiing the Northeast Couloir of Mount Deception
Robby and I have skied some bigger lines together, but the Northeast Couloir of Mount Deception turned out to be the steepest and gnarliest that either of us have skied so far and the crusty/heavy snow didn’t help. Here’s a small collection of photos showing how that went.
Looking up at the line from camp the evening before our attempt.
Hoping the line gets less steep as we get closer (it doesn’t).
Alpenglow on the line (the narrow couloir up to the right)
Midway up.
Topping out the line
Dropping in
Very wet + catchy snow made the descent a bit sketchy
Rocketing out of the sluff-scarred couloir and onto the lower slopes
Some good turns on sluff bed-surface
All smiles after skiing the line
A couple more photos from the trip:
Full pack fear
And finally, a few photos from Robby’s cabin:
Vibrant colors on the Olympic Peninsula (minimally edited, it’s just remarkably vivid out there)
Power Pose