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Backcountry Skiing - Tam MacAurthur Ridge with CA, Tim Hooton

May 24, 2020 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Walk

Weather: 50s - 70s and SUNNY (mega-sun in the snow fields)

Comments:
Met Tim Hooton at his house, only a few miles upriver from our campsite. He'd be our "guide" on our first real (fun) more horizontal-style backcountry ski tour.

Tim is both an olde tyme runner in the area (and current/new MRTR 50K RD) and an investor/regular at Tap & Growler that Callie first got to know when working there. Super-nice guy and - for age 69 - pretty damn athletic and energetic! (It'd be easy to guess him late 50s, for sure).

Met him at his house, and he made us breakfast - blueberry pancakes and coffee! This was the first time we'd been in someone's house since covid19. With he and his GF in rather close quarter, we were a little apprehensive...but as far as "Russian Roulette" goes, this one was relatively low-risk.

Around 8ish, we drove up to Sisters, then due south to Three Creeks Lake - a place I'd never been. The 15-mile drive from Sisters climbed a ton, to like 6500' (Sister is 3100').

From there, we packed up: started in hiking shoes/boots and toting skis and ski boots in backpacks.

At 6500' there was still a decent amount of snow, so we were hiking on/in snow for nearly the first hour, hiking up rather steep parts of the "rim". Finally, on top, we put on the skis/skins and shushed along on the flat.

Amazing views up there! This area is directly east (and maybe 5mi) from the Three Sisters, and afforded amazing perspective, as the top of the ridge, once we got up there, was at least 8k'.

Took a few long breaks, including at our southern terminus, when we realized it'd be really hard (painful) work to try to get to Broken Top Mtn on the south side. Both CA's and my boots are still not super-comfortable, so after a few hours in them, we were getting pinched and blistered.

Took a nice, long break on the ridge, then began our ski down!

In retrospect, we should've removed our skins earlier, as the high plateau was a slight downhill on the way back. But we ditched them to ski down the rim, which was really fun! (and, at times, precarious, as neither CA nor Tim are very skilled DH skiers, especially because of Tim's telemark bindings!)

But we made it down.

Great outing. Had a beer along Three Creeks Lake at the end of it all.

Post-ski: Tim went home and CA and I camped up at the meadow CG. Really cool area!