Northwest Couloir, Mt. Shuksan
One week after checking Hidden Lake Lookout off of my list, I skied the biggest line of my life. Ross and I had only half-heartedly talked about skiing this peak, expecting the dangerous avalanche conditions that had for so long plagued the Cascades in 2021 to restrict any reasonable access to this line, but by some luck, conditions cleared up for the perfect outing.
Mount Shuksan is a glaciated massif (a bunch of peaks close together covered in large glaciers) in the North Cascades just slightly northwest of Koma Kulshan (Mount Baker). Of these two northern peaks, Shuksan is the less-summited and less-skied of the pair, with most outdoor enthusiasts being drawn to the prospect of summitting an actual volcano. However, Shuksan is a beast of a mountain – the terrain is formidable and heavily crevassed, even in deep winter.
On Shuksan’s northwest face is a line deemed one of North America’s 50 Classic Ski Descents (a list made recently-famous by professional skier Cody Townsend) called the Northwest Couloir. And boy is this a doozy. After ascending nearly five thousand vertical feet in just 4 miles across the White Salmon glacier, the line immediately drops from 8200 feet to 3700 feet in 2 miles – an ungodly steep line. The initial descent is angled at roughly 50 degrees. However, this is followed by a short by hyper-exposed traverse over an 80-foot cliff section. In good conditions, this traverse will be covered in fresh, shaded snow, and confident skiers can make quick work of it – however, in our case, the traverse was bullet-proof ice. We scooted along, ice axes in hand, praying to the Norse god Ullr (a.k.a. mechanical engineers at Volkl and Blizzard) to grant us safe and short passage. The term “survival skiing” would be apt, to say the least. The remainder of the couloir consists of steep 50-55 degree slopes, with overhead danger from the above cliffs, and also from the sheer amount of steep-angled snow in the actual couloir. But if you keep your wits about you, make precise jump turns, and try your best not to fall, this skiing could be some of the best in your life.
