Fast Facts:
Start Elevation: 7,150
Peak Elevation: 10,241
Vertical: 3,179 (see Strava)
Distance: 6.60 miles
Elapsed Time: 3:42
Date: April 13, 2024
As you drive down BCC, the face of Mount Raymond greets you in all of its glory and tempts you to ski it. A year earlier on my skin over to Gobblers Knob, I got a good glimpse of Main Chute on Raymond and I decisively added it to my list of lines to ski. 2024 was another solid snow year with over 620" but the season was winding down and I wanted to check Raymond off my list so we elected to ski it on a suboptimal day. It had been a warm week and the snow never refroze overnight for a few days. We were hoping to ski some corn but mother nature had other plans.
We started around 7:15 AM from the Butler Fork trailhead and I would make the argument that starting at Mill A would be the faster route.
Butler Fork takes you past Circle All Peaks and then to the West Butler Saddle. Once you are on top of the pass, you get your first shot of the east facing side of Mount Raymond. We immediately noticed that some wet slides had occurred over the last few days so skiing wasn't going to be epic but it was a nice sunny day so we proceeded onward.
After passing the saddle, you traverse along the south side of Gobblers just below White Snake through the trees.
You head towards Baker Pass which separates Raymond and Gobblers. When you reach the pass, you will have traveled 2.5 miles and it took us 1:45 minutes to reach this point. From the saddle, the next stage is climbing up a series of steep switch backs.
At the top of the switchbacks, you are now on the ridge and you take for a short period and then you have to take the skis off for a quick boot up the last few hundred vertical.
At the summit of Mount Raymond, you are treated to one of the best vantage points of Broads Fork.
It was now about 10 am when we reached the summit and the due east facing Main Chute was cooking. The temps might have gotten down to freezing for a few hours the night before but it wasn't enough for a proper freeze. It was going to be soft and mushy so the goal was not to tweak a knee and get out of there before a wet slides started. The first two skiers skied the sloppy Main Chute and it was a hot mess. So Sean and I elected to ski the next chute to the skiers right and it wasn't much better. Both of these lines would be epic mid winter after a big dump but they are short shots. It takes close to 3 hours to get to the summit for a quick 900 ft run and then a long runout to get back to the car so Mount Raymond isn't my favorite area.
