Mount Bailey (OR) - NE Bowl

Mount Bailey is a great winter touring destination, especially if you’re able to reserve the Hemlock shelter and base camp out of it for a few days. For the couple of trips where I’ve done that, we’ve limited our skiing to Avalanche Bowl and the SW face. One of the lines I’d been wanting to do was the NE bowl, but we'd never made it happen. Basically, it's a relatively steep line that drops about 1,000’ on an open face slope. This bowl is easily visible from the east side of Diamond Lake and actually caught my attention during a tour on Mount Thielsen, which also sits on the east side. From that perspective it looked really sweet and I knew I needed to ski it at some point. The benefit of being northeast facing, is that it holds snow all the way thru spring volcano season, giving ample opportunity to do so.

Mount Bailey - Taken from a tour on Mount Theilsen, a few years prior.

Now, late spring of 2019, I was looking for a tour or two to do over the weekend, and the one that first that came to my mind was the NE bowl on Mount Bailey. After sending out an email and a couple of texts, I was able to convince four others that it was a good idea. Since we would need to get an early start, part of the crew camped at Diamond Lake the night before, while my buddy Brad and I decided to drive over really early that morning. For us, this meant waking up at 2:15am and leaving Eugene by 3:30am, to meet the others at the start of the tour at around 6am. Surprisingly, we were able to meet this aggressive schedule and we pulled up to the Thielsen View campground right on time, where we found the others waiting for us.

Morning light on the NE bowl

From the campground, we only drove south for about a ¼ mile before pulling over into a small dirt lot, where we’d start the tour. As soon as we got out of the car we were assaulted by a cloud of mosquitoes. I assumed we might encounter this, so I’d brought an arsenal of bug spray and quickly applied a shield of protection. Even with a heavy coating, they swarmed us from head to toe, which hastened our gear preparation. Before long we were all geared up and started heading west and toward the ridge that would eventually take us to the summit.

Since there was no official trail for our planned route, we had to both bushwhack and navigate by GPS. There were quite a few fallen trees to navigate in the first bit of the approach, which I hoped wouldn’t become the story of the day. Furthermore, the mosquitoes didn’t let up, which forced us to move quickly and mitigate breaks. The further up we climbed the more open the forest became and route finding became a little easier. Once we reached the actual ridge, it got much steeper and our pace was slowed once again. As we climbed higher the patches of snow began to merge and eventually made it possible to skin. This is also where we reached timberline and the mosquitoes subsided – things were starting to look up!

Lucy navigates the plethora of blowdown on the first part of the approach

All smiles early on

One of a few open stretches, which made travel a bit easier.

First bits of snow

Near the foot of the ridge

Some decent views of the lake on the way up

Starting to fill in with snow a bit more

It was certainly debatable on whether or not it made sense to continue hiking or start skinning, but if for no other reason than to switch muscle groups, I decided for the latter. Once I’d switched out my hiking shoes for ski boots, I stepped into my bindings, engaged the heel risers and started ascending the open meadow above me. Before long, I saw Brad (who had continued to hike and was well ahead of us) standing on a rocky high point, which I assumed was the summit. Re-energized, I hastened my pace and set course in his direction. As I closed in it became clear that this was only a false summit; however, the true summit was now visible and wasn’t far off.

Skinning!
(photo by Lucy Barton)

First close-up view of the NE bowl - a little thin but still plenty of snow for some late spring lines!

First view of the false summit

Brad checks out the surroundings

Brad

Looking east, from the false summit

The true summit

Once we had a chance to rest a bit and take in the view, we continued the last 1/8 of a mile to the summit, which is basically a walk up to a rounded highpoint. At the summit we found a 360 degree panoramic, with a view stretching all the way from Mount Shasta (south) to Mount Hood (north). We were also treated to spectacular weather, with mild temps and minimal wind. After everyone had a chance to catch up, we had a quick celebration and then started preparing for the descent.

Brad makes the final push to the summit

The rest of the crew on the home stretch

Success! 

Hanging at the summit

Since none of us had done this descent before, we had to consult the map and GPS to figure out where we needed to drop in. After a little bit of searching we found the rollover into the center of the bowl, which was quite steep and a bit intimidating. Luckily, the snow had corned up nicely and took a little bit of the edge off. Since this was my crazy idea, I offered to drop in first. As I side-slipped over the edge of the rollover I could see a more gradual entrance to my left. With that I pointed by skis diagonally down the hill and in that direction. With the soft top layer of snow, my edges dug in nicely and I was able to make a few nice turns down to a place where I could take photos of the others coming down. Once I gave them the ‘all good’, they dropped in one at a time.

Time to ski!

Brad, stoked for the descent!

Nick makes his way toward the NE bowl

The author and Albus scout their line down the NE bowl
(photo by Lucy Barton)

Nick enters the bowl

Nick

Lucy drops in

Stacy heads toward the money line

Brad joins the fun

Diggin' in!

After putting my camera away, I traversed over to the middle of the bowl, took a few turns down and then posted up on the other side, hoping to grab some more photos from over there. Everyone soon started to find their groove and before long everyone was hootin’ & hollerin’ as they painted their lines down the face.

Boot shots

Stacy, partway down the face

Nick, exploring the left side.

Lucy

From my second staging point I decided to ski all the way to the bottom and take photos from there. This allowed me to really dig in and enjoy the ride, with my legs really feeling the burn by the time the slope mellowed out near the bottom of the run. From below, I got to see just how wide the bowl was, and although we had dropped down the main line in the center, there was plenty of more terrain that would have been fun to ski. Before long the others started descending the last half of the run, with the dogs doing their best to keep up. Once we had all recollected at the bottom we discussed doing another lap, but eventually decided to head out instead – this was fine with me, since I was planning to ski Diamond Peak the following day.

Party ski to finish things up

Lucy and Nick, coming in hot.

Brad, at the bottom of the bowl.

A couple last turns

Recollecting at the bottom

To get back to the car, we first traversed east across the bottom of the bowl, until we eventually reached the forest edge. Once in the forest, we continued on skis until we were forced to start hiking, due to intermittent snow and thick vegetation. Hiking back down to the car was fairly uneventful, as we kept a steady pace to stay ahead of the skeeters. Although they didn’t seem as bad as they were on the way up, we still had to apply a healthy dose of repellent to keep them at bay. After ~2.5 miles of bushwhacking we reached the cars, where we dumped our packs and celebrated over beers. With the mosquitoes crashing the party, we didn’t hang out long and Brad and I soon parted ways with the rest of the crew, starting the drive back home.

Traversing the bottom of the bowl

The crew

A little more traversing
(photo by Lucy Barton)

Entering the forest

Nick, on the hike out.

Stacy and Lucy

Back to bare ground

Functional and fashionable
(photo by Lucy Barton)

Still having fun
(photo by Lucy Barton)

Closing in to the cars
(photo by Lucy Barton)

Conclusion:
The NE Bowl on Mount Bailey offers up some pretty fantastic lines, with the benefit of holding snow longer than the other main aspects on the mountain. It’s a pretty steep line with a slope angle in the high 30s low 40s, and the rollover probably steeper than that. Once the west side of Diamond Lake is open, it’s a reasonable approach at around 4.5 miles and gaining just over 3,000’. If you decide to do it during mosquito season make sure to bring lots of bug spray, and a headnet would be a wise decision as well. As for doing it during the winter, it’s a longer approach, but if you’re base camping out of the Hemlock Shelter, it would be a very reasonable day trip. That said, the slope is prone to avalanche, especially with the convexity at the top. Obviously, just ensure conditions are very stable before dropping in.

This is certainly a tour I’ll be repeating, hopefully bagging a winter run at some point, but most certainly during spring volcano season.

The tracks from our tour: