For a different view of the North Cascades in winter, try snowmobiling

MAZAMA, Okanogan County — When one road closes, another one opens. The annual arrival of snow in the North Cascades is a fall-to-early-winter ritual normally seen through the lens of closure. Vehicles can no longer be driven over the mountainous stretch of Highway 20 until snow removal operations come spring and the journey from Western Washington to the Methow Valley tacks on an additional hour or more.

But if you can get your hands on a snowmobile, then snowfall has the opposite effect. From that point of view, winter is when North Cascades Highway opens for the season. With a deep snowpack and several Sno-Parks, the North Cascades is a magnet for the region’s snowmobilers. That sentiment was abundantly clear on a brutally cold December morning last year as I counted dozens of sleds parked at the Silver Star Sno-Park, seven miles west of Mazama. Bundled up in all my layers, I windmilled my arms and aggressively wiggled my toes in my ski boots to keep warm on a day that would struggle to climb into the high single digits while certified mountain guide Josh Cole wrestled a snowmobile off the back of a truck.

A friend and I had hired Cole from Mazama-based North Cascades Mountain Guides for a day of guided backcountry skiing at Washington Pass ($350 per person plus tip with two clients, ncmountainguides.com). Perched at 5,477 feet elevation, the mountain pass is home to the iconic rock feature known as the Liberty Bell. In years past, I’ve joined the queue on Highway 20’s spring opening day for first crack at the Birthday Tour, a Liberty Bell circumnavigation named by retired Winthrop librarian and Methow ski guide author Sally Portman.

But I’d never strapped into my skis at Washington Pass, nor laid eyes on the Liberty Bell, in the heart of winter. Snowmobiles, most with skis or splitboards strapped on the back, revved their engines and started up the tree-lined valley. After a quick snowmobile driving tutorial — clients are welcome to, but not required to, drive a sled — we did the same.

I, a complete novice, took hold of the handlebars while my buddy, a snowmobile owner of several years, gripped the passenger grab bars for dear life. As a seasoned sledder, however, he knew that passengers are not passive riders, they have to lean into turns alongside the driver to maintain balance. Tipping a 500-pound machine is a good way get injured. But while piloting a snowmobile into deep untracked powder requires extensive skill, I found it reasonably intuitive to accelerate, steer and brake on a packed-down road surface as I followed Cole up the road toward the pass.

Like any winter activity, conditions can vary widely. “When the road is really bumpy, you can only go 30 mph,” Cole said. “When the road is smooth, you can travel much more quickly.” It can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to reach skiable terrain, depending on the destination. If the conditions are really rough, the guide can even take over to pilot a client’s sled through tricky spots. On our day out, the ride was on the longer end and I watched out for signs of frostbite until we finally burst into the alpine where brilliant sunshine banished the frigid valley chill.

That moment encapsulated the magic of snowmobile-assisted backcountry skiing to Washington Pass. Most ski tours in the Cascades start below tree line and involve a healthy amount of bushwhacking. An errant stick poking your eye out is sometimes the day’s biggest hazard, and savvy Cascadian skiers have mastered the “veggie belay,” a technique where grabbing onto a sturdy tree branch allows you to hoist yourself up a steep stretch of a backcountry skier’s ascending route, known as a skin track.

None of that was necessary when we pulled our snowmobiles over at pass level, where just a few well-spaced trees separated us from the day’s objective, an alpine zone known as Portly Bowl. The name honors Don Portman, one of the Methow Valley’s ski trail pioneers. We unloaded our skis and packs from the sleds and stretched climbing skins onto our alpine touring skis. Cole broke trail, setting a skin track that we used for multiple laps in the moderately angled bowl cupping an abundance of dry, light powder.

While Champagne powder days are not unheard of west of the Cascade crest — that same week, Snoqualmie Pass skied like a dream — Washington Pass’s high elevation and eastern position tend to capture more of winter’s finest export. We admired the marvelous view of the surrounding North Cascades, picking out distant peaks that won’t come into play until spring ski mountaineering season, then clipped into our skis and floated S-turns with a front row view of the Liberty Bell. On a bluebird day the experience was downright cinematic — no wonder Teton Gravity Research chose the area as a filming location for their 2021 ski flick “Stoke the Fire.”

Stable avalanche conditions were key, however, as Highway 20 crosses several avalanche paths — a hazard that motivates the road closure to begin with. Just driving a snowmobile up to pass level involves avalanche risk, as does climbing and skiing most of the terrain once you get there. Some guided days are confined to below tree line runs that minimize avalanche risk. As is standard issue for midwinter backcountry skiing, we each carried an avalanche beacon, shovel and probe. In addition to checking our beacons at the trailhead, the Silver Star Sno-Park has an automated beacon detection sign so you can double-check that your lifesaving device is beeping. (Note that the Washington State Department of Transportation does not plow Highway 20 to Silver Star Sno-Park throughout the winter, and this season the Sno-Park will be inaccessible with the winter closure set at Early Winters on Nov. 9.)

What’s more, we had the basin to ourselves, an increasingly difficult backcountry solitude to find on obvious and popular ski lines. Snowmobile-only access definitely thins the crowds. But the worldwide backcountry boom has touched this corner of the Cascades as well. “There’s no denying there are a lot more people skiing here now,” said Cole. “While that increase feels pretty extreme here because it went from being fairly quiet to much busier, there’s a lot of increase in backcountry skiing overall everywhere.”

North Cascades Mountain Guides does its part to be a good backcountry neighbor by generally limiting its daily client count to a maximum of six. Two winters ago, the Forest Service closed the terrain around Washington Pass off Highway 20 to snowmobiles due to surging visitation. However, the well-organized Washington State Snowmobile Association lobbied against the access restriction, which was soon rescinded. Most snowmobilers without skiing aspirations head up Harts Pass, a different alpine realm above the Methow Valley, and we only saw one snowmobile maneuvering off trail to play in powder.

“It is more effort than getting to the vast majority of places that people backcountry ski in the west,” said Cole. “But to me it’s worth it because it’s a pretty spectacular spot. The terrain is really excellent — access to a lot of big lines and beautiful alpine terrain with a lot less slogging than you might find in other parts of Washington.”