2nd Peak - 9529 Feet
Location: 43.48456°N, 114.90712°W
Stats
Date: 2/16/2008
Distance: 8 miles
Elevation gain: 3000'
Class (difficulty): 1
Time: 5.5 hours
Range: Blue
Partner(s): John and Mariel Platt
Report:
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A snowcat trail for backcountry skiing is maintained by the Soldier Mountain Ski Area to the top of 2nd Peak. You are allowed to ride the lift up and use this trail. A one-way lift ticket is $10 and purchased at the ski area. When you leave the ski area at the top lift, ski patrol asks that you sign in/out on their register, so they know where to send help should you not return.
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I had previously snowshoed 2nd Peak, but always wanted to return and ski down the entire route. I also wanted to add 3rd Peak to the itinerary as well. So I talked with John about this and we finally found a weekend where the weather and schedules would cooperate.
The trip took a bit of a hit on Friday night when I went to pick up my AT gear in Boise... they had a rush of 20 people that took all the gear. Nobody else in town had the entire package (skins, boots, and skis). So I called up to Fairfield and suprisingly found someone that had the gear.
John and I left Boise a bit earlier than we needed to and instead of sitting around and waiting for Mariel, we took some photos and located the ski shop. We ran into Dave at the ski shop and he assured me the gear was good-to-go and I could get it in an hour at the ski area. We met Mariel a short time later and drove up to the ski area.
Here is where the story gets ugly... he didn't have AT boots large enough for me, so we tried getting my regular ski boots to work. They were too big for any AT ski boots in the store. In addition, none of the boots he had fit my feet. So I went out and explained the situation to John. John suggested I ride the lift with my regular Alpine skis and boots, switch into snowshoes, then carry the skis and boots to the top of the mountain. Sounded like a plan. I went to put my boots into my skis and "ugh!" they were too big for my bindings (I had new boots and never tried them with my bindings, but had used them with demo skis the first time). So I went back into the rental shop and after 15 minutes of looking for skis with bindings big enough to support my large boots, we gave up.
I headed back out with my head down. John then suggested I cram my foots into some small boots, ride the lift, switch to snowshoes, carry the boots and skis to the top, then ski down. I ran back in grabbed the boots, popped them into my bindings, and off we went (finally!).
Frustrated and having wasted an hour, I quickly got over it as I finally looked around and noticed how nice the day was. When we left Boise the weather station on top of 2nd Peak was registering gusts to 70mph. We hoped those had slowed down.
So John telemarked (carrying my skis), Mariel AT'd, and I snowshoed (carrying my ski boots). We just followed the immaculate cat track used by Soldier Mountain to take paying cat skiers to the top. Things were good... I was suprised that I could keep up with the skiers and the day was beautiful with limited wind. At around 8500' we were stopped by ski patrol and warned that they were going to be setting off an explosion to help the slope avalanche and to stay away from the large bowl on the northeast side of the peak. Soon after a snowcat passed with more support crew for the blasting. Later we saw the ski patroller set up the explosive device and waited with cameras in hand to capture the slide. The exlosion came, but it did not slide. A second explosion started a minor slide. After putting up the cameras and starting to move again, we could tell the wind was about to start become a factor, so we buttoned up.
The last 500 feet turned cold and windy. We were exposed on the ridge, feeling the elevation, and tired from our ascent. We pushed on and eventually topped out in raging winds. The plan was to continue on to 3rd Peak, but Mariel had communicated earlier that she was not feeling up to it. John dug her a snowpit to hang out in and came up to talk with me. With the wind blowing that hard and me wanting to keep the group together and the day simple, I decided to leave 3rd Peak for another day and head down. Before heading down we hung out a 100 feet below the summit in relatively calm conditions. Since people always "exaggerate" the wind speeds, I thought it would be a fun excercise to see if we could guess the wind speed, since later on we could find out the wind speed online for the exact time we summitted. So I asked John to guess. He estimated 25-30mph with gusts to 40mph. I estimated 35mph with gusts to 45mph. When I got home, I looked online and at 2pm winds were 38mph and gusting to 52mph. We underestimated! I also must say that those winds were nowhere near as hard as the winds I experienced on Quicksilver Peak a few years ago (the trip where I got called out for "exaggerating").
After some photos and rehydration it was time to change out my snowshoes for undersized ski boots and skis. We then headed down. The first 600' feet in the hard wind took about 3 or 4 minutes. We were then out of the wind and could relax. Tired legs and numb feet from the tight boots caused me to slow a bit, but it was a blast to drop 2500' as quick as we did. Just before the top of the ski lift, we had to ascend 100' and that was a bit brutal. But from there it was another 1500' feet of groomers back to the base of the ski hill and the end of a fun trip!
I was amazed at the amounts of snow on the Camas Prairie on the ride home and had to stop and take some photos. Hopefully the photos show how much snow there actually was.
Getting There:
From US 20 in Fairfield, turn LEFT onto SOLDIER RD/CENTER ST. Follow the road 1.9 miles to a stop sign. At the stop sign, turn RIGHT onto BASE LINE RD. Follow BASE LINE RD. 0.2 miles, then turn LEFT onto SOLDIER CREEK RD/NF 094. Continue to follow NF 094 (Portions unpaved) to the ski lift parking lot.
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