We awoke to sun beaming into our tent in the Thielsen sno-park. Another late start. However, looking across the lake to Bailey, we saw bluebird skies. Ominous clouds seemed to be held over the Crater Lake area to the south, and after a slow moving start, and much deliberation, we decided to go for it.
Mt. Bailey was supposedly easier than Thielsen, but it was a LONG slog in, about 18 miles RT. We arrived at the Bailey sno-park, and after I got the car stuck while trying to drive up the imaginary road that was actually the snomo trailhead, we successfully dug it out and quickly began our approach.
Since Bailey has a cat ski operation off the W side, it also has a groomed track almost all the way up to the summit. A lesson learned on this trip: just because it’s groomed doesn’t make it easy.
After slogging in for 6.5 miles, a few friendly snomos helped us in bringing us to the junction to start ascending the mountain – still another 3 miles to summit.
Crossing a snow bridge heading to Mount Bailey
Following the groomer up to the summit of Mount Bailey
Looking up the slopes of Mount Bailey
Snow covered roads
As we climbed, we heard two rather large slides at different points in the day. It sounded like they were being triggered by the cat ski patrol, but still a bit unsettling. We continued to climb and the clouds continued to move in, increasingly dropping heavy graupel and lowering the visibility.
A snow cat heading down Mount Bailey
Our intentions had been to ski the SE face and pop out on the trail to head back to the car. However, as the weather worsened, our plans would need to wait for another time. At the summit we talked with the patrol in almost zero visibility, who confirmed our suspicions of windslabbed snow and dangerous conditions off the SE side, so we played it safe and skied mellow trees with few powder turns back to the junction.
Preparing to ski back down the groomer
As we began our slog back out, night quickly turned and we luckily had some snomos ask if we wanted a tow out. Throwing our ski gear on, we held on to tow ropes and rocketed out the last few miles, saving us hours of horrendous skinning back to the car. We quickly loaded up and headed out, knowing that although we had summited Bailey, it was not skied properly, and therefore would require a return trip sometime.
If you enjoyed this post make sure to check out my other trips on the Cascade Volcanoes in the link below.
