Mount Barff is a beautiful peak situated in the Mutukituki valley with the Liverpool hut at its base. My friend Ben arrived in New Zealand for a two week trip of ski touring and exploring. We went over different ideas of places to go once he landed at the Queenstown airport. We decided to drive North to Wanaka and after picking up some groceries head to Mount Aspiring National Park. Once there we would climb up to and stay at the Liverpool Hut and do a ski tour around Mount Barff.
Sufferfest
Partial Picket Range Ski Traverse and Mount Ruth
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The idea to do a Picket Range Ski Traverse was the brain child of both Jason Hummel and Forrest Mcbrian. Basically I was a passenger and this is how a trip that would change my life came together.
February 17th 2010 presented a rare weather window indigenous to spring in the Cascades—6 days of clear skies and, most likely, stable, predictable maritime snowpack. The infrequent opportunity called for something long and arduous in the backcountry. Like most other mountaineers in the area, this was what I had waited for—a big weather window, and the opportunity to do something big with it.
As a splitboard mountaineer, finding touring partners often means looking beyond snowboarders toward the truly elite in sliding tool mountaineering (yeah, that often means skiers). Jason Hummel, though a skier, was a frequent traveling partner, good friend, and talented photographer. Traveling with him was a given for the upcoming window, but where we would go was yet to be determined. Jason had considered the Picket Range Ski Traverse many times before, and was knowledgeable about the area. He and I had talked for a while about doing a trip in the area.
Sunrise Traverse gone bad
Sunrise Traverse gone bad
Whitehorse Mountain Sufferfest in the Cascades
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Whitehorse Mountain in the North Cascades of Washington is one of the wildest easy access ski tours around. With direct access from Darrington the North face is some of the steeper and more open lines out there. If you are willing to deal with a nasty approach it is a great ski tour.
With large amounts of accumulation over the past few days and a forecast of partly sunny skies and lower freezing levels Hannah and myself were ready to tackle something big. The question was where to go and what area would deliver quality snow. Whatever it was it had to be north facing and top out at a relatively high elevation. After combing topos and passing ideas back and forth there was one peak that kept on coming up, Whitehorse right outside of Darrington had all the right components, a long North facing run, relatively easy access and A summit just under 7’000 feet.