Snowcats prowl the rugged path
The options expanded within the past two years with newcomer Leavenworth Snowcat Skiing, based 120 miles east of Seattle. This low-key operation may prove a valuable addition for those who want to get away from the lifts, provided its terrain receives consistent and abundant snowfall. So far, that's proven elusive.
Snowcat skiing has grown increasingly popular in recent years, especially in British Columbia. Here's how it works: A snowcat (similar to the grooming machines at ski areas) churns up the mountainside on special treads while carrying a heated cabin full of skiers. It deposits them atop an ungroomed run, churns downhill to retrieve them, and repeats. Skiers can expect to make about 10 to 12 runs a day with Leavenworth Snowcat Skiing, for about 12,000 vertical feet of skiing. At about one-third the cost of riding in a helicopter (or less), some call it the "poor man's heliskiing." Six friends and I did even better last winter, gathering enough of us to take advantage of an early-season promotion in which seven skiers paid just $100 each, half of this year's $195-$225 full-fare price.
It doesn't take long for the well-traveled skier to notice that Leavenworth Snowcat Skiing is more down-home than high-gloss, and much different from outfits such as British Columbia's famed Island Lake Lodge. After a sleepy rendezvous one morning last February in Leavenworth, 11 of us clients and two guides drove 20 minutes up a valley and parked in a former lumberjack's yard, beside a sheep pasture.
The awaiting snowcat resembled a greenhouse with seats, bolted atop a tank chassis. It was homemade by Greg Randall, the company's co-owner, who was trained as a welder in addition to being a longtime ski patroller at Stevens Pass, and now at Mission Ridge. Randall is also chief mechanic with co-owner Ray Schmitten, a mustachioed horticulturist in Gore-Tex overalls from nearby Cashmere who grows pears and cherries on 105 acres when not serving as chief ski guide.
Snowcats are notoriously temperamental machines, so "it's good to have some farmer in ya," Schmitten yelled over the roar of the 'cat, once we had loaded inside and begun our 45-minute trundle up Entiat Ridge.
As he spoke, chunks of snow churned up by the snowcat popped through one of the cat's broken Plexiglas windows. Schmitten turned to the teen who was manning the 'cat's CD player. "What is this, Yanni or something?" The delicate, offending music evaporated, replaced by the power riffs of Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Our unvarnished experience was under way.
In a world gone wild with rules and lawsuits, the unstarched approach of Leavenworth Snowcat Skiing was welcome — to a point. A little more "starch" might have been appreciated, for example, when the guides handed out avalanche beacons but accompanied them with perfunctory instruction (granted, it wasn't a deep powder day), and we didn't practice using them. Then Ken Clarke, the junior guide with a wild smile who was supposed to be the "tail-gunner" and help stragglers, happily told us he was skiing on a broken foot — and on a leg with a stress fracture.
Not your normal runs
The increasingly handsome ski terrain distracted us from other concerns. Leavenworth Snowcat Skiing's machines prowl 3,400 acres of state and private timberlands, including four peaks and three main cirques.
This isn't your usual tree-furred Northwest landscape, however. In 1992 wildfires swept this area, scalding the flanks of 5,800-foot Chumstick Mountain and the hogback ridges of its neighbors. Today the mountainsides are quilled with dead lodgepole pines.
Though the ski runs down them are not always of dizzying steepness, much of the company's terrain consists of tree skiing that's only suitable for experts and strong intermediates who are nimble enough to avoid a mouthful of bark.
It's also not for those who don't have their ski legs under them: The snowcat plies straight-to-the-top fire roads built during the 1992 fire, instead of gentler logging roads that switchback uphill for ages, so the runs come with less rest in between them.
Unfortunately, last year's El Niño winter had left Chumstick and the peaks around it begging for snow. Adding insult to (potential) injury, recent warm days had softened and re-frozen some of the slopes. Our first run was a mess. As we picked our way downhill the wind shrieked through the standing snags, as if in warning. The treeless, south-facing bowls were no alternative, since they were cooked by recent sunny days.
Each run we took, however, got incrementally better as Randall and Schmitten sought out the higher, north- and northeast-facing slopes that are protected from sun and receive the snow that southerly winds have blown off the ridges.
The tradeoff: The shaded, wetter slopes have even tighter trees. After dancing through the snags on runs like Tuna Bowl, I found charcoal smudges on my jacket.
The day's highlight came right before lunch, on an unnamed northeast-facing ridge where the blown snow wrapped our shins and the trees were not so tight. Everybody whooped in happy relief.
Snowcat camaraderie
Strangely, what's almost best about snowcat skiing is the down-time. In the cab during each ascent our group of several strangers laughed, ate and swapped stories. The stereo cranked "Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo." And each time we ascended, the view startled anew: Mount Stuart, Glacier Peak, Mission Ridge ski area, the pancake flats of Eastern Washington marked each point of the compass.
The view also showed the challenge this snowcat business faces: While we watched the mountains to the west snag the clouds and the snowfall, we skied in sun much of the day.
About a week later, Chumstick Mountain received a foot of new snow. Skiers, I heard, had an epic day. Chalk it up to the vagaries of the Cascades in an El Niño winter. As a friend and I drove home, we agreed on a strategy for enjoying Leavenworth Snowcat Skiing: Watch the weather forecast diligently, and be willing to play hooky for a day with scant notice.
In powder skiing as in life, timing can be everything.
Seattle-based free-lance writer Christopher Solomon is a regular contributor to Outside, Skiing and other magazines.
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