Forbidden Tour
The Forbidden tour is a classic PNW backcountry skiing adventure that circumnavigates Forbidden Peak in the North Cascades. The stats vary depending on the route, but typically it requires traveling around 20 miles and 10,000’ of vertical elevation gain and loss. Our team of 4 (Kyle, Logan, Jon & myself) completed a variation of this tour in a single day on 3/30/2024. It was a huge and rewarding day, one that I will remember for a long time! We encountered the whole spectrum of snow conditions, windboard, several forms of crust, ice, mashed potatoes and yes, delightful powder!
A trip report below:
Starting at 5AM from the Eldorado climbers trail, we walked from the road block at the end of Cascade River Road to the Boston Basin trail. Our morning started out more difficult than expected. Through the forest, we encountered blowdown and pesky alders, which made travel difficult and annoying, especially with skis on our back. This was largely our ‘crux’ of the day, some bush bashing mixed with patchy snow. At the 4000’ level, we left the trail and donned on our skins. We forged our own path through the forest and open slopes until we reached the snow slopes below the Quien Sabe glacier. We had inspiring views of Boston Basin and Johannesburg.
The mighty Johannesburg!
Boston Basin looking mighty fine in a winter coat.
Our target was the Sharkfin Col, to reach the Boston Glacier. The col looked thin and caused some discussion on the feasibility of completing the tour. We opted to take a look anyways.
From the open slopes below the glacier, we could see another party of 4 underneath the Sharkfin col. They had camped near the col the night before. We were dreaming of the thought that they might set a booter up the col for us…. Unfortunately it was just a dream! We met them at the base and had a nice chat. They were completing the tour over 3 days and kindly let us set the bootpack up the Sharkfin Col, as we were clearly on a mission.
Contrary to our initial thoughts, the col was relatively straightforward. It was mildly technical, with a mix of rotten snow, rock and ice. There are two variations of the sharkfin col. We quickly abandoned variation 1, due to steep ice coupled with members of our party having only aluminum crampons. Variation 2 goes lookers right and ascended a more open slope. After a few minor rock steps at the top, Kyle and I reached the rappel station and I rappeled onto the steep powder slopes of the Boston Glacier. After all members of our party finished the rappel we transitioned to skis, marveling at the high quality snow and the terrain ahead.
The heavily crevassed Boston Glacier, sprinkled with LOTS of powder. Our next col is circled in red.
We briefly discussed our line of choice to reach the col between the Boston and Forbidden Glacier…. The glacier was heavily crevassed and rather intimidating, so we all agreed to have several safety stopping points along the way…. It was time to ski! We were having the time of our lives, skiing deep powder between safety points and marveling over the remoteness and expansive views of the North Cascades. We skied until it was time to start ascending to the glacier to the next col, between the Boston and Forbidden Glacier.
Powder turns on the Boston Glacier, below the Sharkfin Col.
Mount Logan in the distance.
A look back at the Sharkfin Col with our turns down the glacier.
We took a quick rest to enjoy the stunning scenery, transition and rope up. Since we carried two ropes, we decided to proceed as teams of two. Skinning across the Boston Glacier was remarkably easy route finding and ascending the col was also trivial, only requiring steep snow to reach the Forbidden Glacier. Kyle broke trail for most of the way, which we were all grateful for!
Kyle and Jon skinning across the Boston Glacier.
Logan skinning below Forbidden Peak.
On top of the Forbidden Glacier, we were all smiles, knowing we had a 3000’ descent to reach Moraine Lake. After a quick snack break, we were back on skis.
A superb ski descent down the Forbidden Glacier.
The skiing down to Moraine lake was mostly excellent, apart from a few sections of the infamous zipper crust. It caught us off guard in a few sections. Our strategy was to find what Kyle described as ‘Fake North’, which was west facing slopes that had more shade due to the tall terrain surrounding it. We found the best turns towards and underneath the seracs of the Forbidden Glacier.
The neat looking seracs of the Forbidden Glacier.
Towards the bottom of Forbidden Glacier, we knew our options were limited due to cliffs below. It was difficult to determine which route ‘went clean’, so we took an educated guess. The terrain to skiers right looked most feasible and after Kyle went on a brief scouting mission, he yelled back that the line went clean. We then skirted around cliffs, skiing mushy snow to Moraine lake, where we took a much needed break to fill up on water from a small hole in the lake. I typically carry only a liter of water, so I definitely wasn’t complaining!
Our route to Moraine Lake, a sneaky line to keep the skis on.
We were all feeling quite tired at our lake break and opted to forego skiing Eldorado peak. The snow on every aspect apart from North was lackluster and it would have added a significant amount of gain and mileage to an already huge day. This also would ensure we did not finish in the dark and would allow us to take a more direct exit out of Moraine Lake. As we were skinning across the lake, the clouds came in and stole our sunshine, solidifying our fate to skiing ‘lovely’ crust for the rest of our tour.
Our direct variation included linking up a north facing gully and north slopes at the far end of Moraine Lake. We gained the cliffs above the lake and found a nice sneak but direct route back to the Eldorado boulder field. It was bad comically bad skiing, but we were happy to have our feet on a real trail.
The exit went without much difficulty and soon we were back at the car at 6:30PM. It was time to enjoy some calories at Dairy Queen and come home to a nice comfortable bed :)
