A sunny end of March Saturday in the PNW, low avalanche conditions, and plenty of good snow on the ground? That sounds like a great day to get a ski tour in. My friend Walt and I discussed several different options and settled on trying a tour at Jim Hill Mountain along Highway 2. Jim Hill Mountain is known as a great moderate ski tour that had been on his list for a while. I was looking to continue to expand the area in which I tour and just generally get more skiing in to build up my skills as I am still in the gumby phase.
We started the tour at the Lanham Lake trailhead which is also where the Nordic Center is. There is two separate parking lots so make sure and park in the correct one before the gates so you don’t get locked in. Also, be respectful of the nordic trail that you have to cross over. Soon we were headed up and making good time to Lanham Lake.
The real fun started though once we started up the ridgeline where the goal was to gain the saddle at 5520 ft of elevation. The skin track that we were following was cut aggressively and had slightly frozen so both of us had a terrible time making forward progress. We were both regretting not having ski and split board crampons with us as we burned far more calories than we should have skinning up.
Finally we hit the saddle and rewarded ourselves with lunch. The sun continued to shine which lifted our spirits and also meant an application of sunscreen. Soon we hit the trail again to gain the last 1000ft of vertical to the top.
Our optimistic plan was to go for the summit of Jim Hill but as we got closer we had a decision to make. The true summit required a slight deviation from the line we wanted to ski and involved us going for the saddle in this photo then climbing the ridge to the left. It was getting late in the day and crossing underneath all of the snow blasted trees under the summit that had been getting sun baked didn’t seem wise. We had expended a lot of energy gaining the ridge so we also would have been slow in a place where we needed to be fast. Agreement was made to not go for the summit and just chase the pow instead.
Soon we were at the eastern saddle where most people drop in to ride the lines heading north east. We did a quick detour to the false summit as the views were too good to pass up as you can see.
We quickly strapped in though and prepared to get some turns in. I snagged a couple of photos of the other split boarders as they dropped in and they came out great. I definitely did not look as excited dropping in as they did as it was a little steeper than I liked.
I survived though and found a safe spot to get shots of Walt getting some great turns in.
After all that fun we made it back to Highway 2, which we then had to hike back up .5 miles to get to the vehicle. As you can see a very solid day from my Strava track though for some reason I ended up with way more vertical gain than it was. It should be right around 4k in vertical gain.
I will definitely be coming back to tour this one again. Though next time avoiding the Lanham Lake trailhead to start and just directly coming up the Henry Creek side would be my recommendation.
As always check out my Photography Website for some of my favorite photos from my adventures.