Vesper Peak Ski Descent
Route Details
Area - Vesper Peak, WA
Access - Park the car at the Sunrise Mine Trailhead. Road access is closed in the winter, usually opens around mid to late April. If climbing in April/early May the first couple of miles will be hiking on (likely) mostly dirt trail until you can transition to skis.
Total Trip Time - 6-8 hours
Total Distance - 6 miles
Main Ski descent - 4100 ft
Elevation Gain/Loss - 3000 ft
Max Slope Angle - 35-40 °
Guides
Not on onXBackcountry at time of writing
FATMAP (below)
Trip Report 4/21/2024
Vesper peak was a bit of a 'what we going to do this weekend' type of trip for Antoine and I. We were in volcano mode but the weather wasn't good enough to get anywhere high into the alpine. It had also just snowed above ~4k feet, and so we were tempted to find the handful of inches that may have fallen in the mountains between 5-7k feet which we deemed the sweet zone for the time being. A ski buddy chat group gave us the idea to try out Vesper and so we decided to check it out.
The Mountain Loop Highway had just opened a couple days before, providing access to the trailhead. We got to the trailhead by around 8 am, strapped our skis on our backs and began hiking along the summer trail towards the snow.
We had to cross a stream a few times and hike around a couple miles until we could get onto enough snow to transition to skis. We generally following the summer trail. There was a lot of avalanche debris in the valley as we climbed, but the snow was isothermic and soft for the most part. We were able to skin up Headlee pass and then made the traverse over towards the upper mountain without having to take out skis off.
We took a quick break just next to Vesper Lake which was completely covered in deep snowpack. Morning Star Mountain was drifting in and out of the clouds and the snow had begun to become cooler and softer under our feet.
The remaining climb to the summit was pretty easy from here. By the time we arrived at the summit it was snowing and we were in the middle of the clouds.
We skied down in more or less a whiteout until we were back at Headlee Pass. From there is was fun steep slush skiing all the way back to our tennis shoes.
Before we knew it we were back at our tennis shoes and then made the hike back down to the car. All in all a fun quick outing. It was a real bummer when we got back to the car and saw that we had a flat tire though, but that's a whole other story.