After work fun! On Friday I ended work mid-day and headed up to Snoqualmie Pass to meet up with Kyle and his friend Sally for a quick lap on the East couloir of Guye Peak.
Route Description
The East Couloir on Guye Peak is best accessed via the Commonwealth Creek drainage. I’d recommend aiming for the saddle between Guye Peak and Cave Ridge and then climbing back towards the summit of Guye. The couloir drops east just before the summit, and is an obvious drop-in point. The top of the couloir is quite steep and narrow, but after a bit of sideslipping it opens up and allows you to start linking up turns comfortably. The approach is short, just under 3 miles and 2,200′.
Trip Report
We met up at 3:30 PM at Summit West and began skinning the late day mush snow up the Commonwealth. The skin track was quick to the bridge across Commonwealth Creek, where we took off our skis and climbed down and walked across the creek. Classic…
The evening light was beautiful over the Snoqualmie Pass backcountry at the saddle between Guye and Cave Ridge. We could feel the evening snow starting to refreeze, though. We made it to the entrance of the couloir and looked down: ooooh.
I took the couloir first, sideslipping down the first 40 feet or so before starting to jump turn back and forth. It wasn’t corn, but it wasn’t horrible breakable crust either, a sort of in-between crusty mush that wasn’t too bad to deal with. I waited at the bottom for Kyle and Sally to follow and we headed back to the cars. A quick little evening patrol and a perfect way to spend a Friday afternoon.
