Art Through Adventure 2026 Recap

Does Art Through Adventure mean perfect weather? Ideal conditions? Dry gear?

Short answer? No.

What’s it mean, then? Well, it means we’ll go out on an adventure, and we’ll get creative. We’ll cover some ground, we’ll see some things, we’ll slide on some snow, we’ll take some photos. When it’s all over, we’ll all agree that it was a really good time. Then we’ll thank the fates for our dry homes and comfortable beds.

An excerpt from an email I sent to the group in the days leading up to this year’s Art Through Adventure workshop (ATA for short.)

In the challenges column, we have a couple of things:

- A weather system has already begun with some precipitation at the Pass. It’s currently in the form of rain. It is forecast to transition to snow sometime in the next 24 hours at Pass levels. The transition will happen sooner in the middle and upper elevation areas. This means that we may have to start our tour in some fairly wet conditions. There are some indications for a break in the precipitation late morning into midday, so we are hoping to time our tour to camp in this window. We recommend a lightweight rain jacket that you plan to get soaked tomorrow while keeping your primary hardshell in good condition for the duration. Same for touring gloves, etc. 

- There is still a persistent weak layer in the snowpack across the Cascades that has not entirely healed despite recent warm conditions, though the forecast improves modestly with each day that goes by with no significant activity on this layer at the Pass. So, there is a lot of terrain that we’d normally be drawn to that we feel is closed for the purposes of this outing. Our tour plan is designed to keep our exposure to large avalanche slopes to a minimum. 

Not the frothiest email I’ve ever sent. 

I go on to explain that the second day should provide us with a blanket of fresh snow and lowering freezing levels, which would have the potential to deliver some quality riding and shooting. As for the third day? Best not to even get into that.

How’d it go? Here’s the report. 

DAY 1: 8am on Wednesday morning found us at the finest place to meet up in all of Cascadia: Laconia Market on Snoqualmie Pass where we each enjoyed a coffee and breakfast item and picked up our 3-day, 2-night meal kits, courtesy of the fine folks at Laconia. The weather was oscillating between rainy and fair, but leaning fair, so we made efficient work of our final packing and preparations and were ready to move from Alpental Lot 4 a little after 9:30. 

The melting/refreezing surface of Source Lake provided us with our first photographic inspiration, while the debris from wet slides on the Chair Peak apron provided our first technical challenge. We opted for a steeper alternative skin track to the Snow Lake divide to avoid the overhead hazard and soon found ourselves on the divide, happy to be above the rain/snow line, as the volume of precipitation began to increase. 

After a quick transition and short descent to Snow Lake in some of the stickiest snow I’ve ever skied, we made our move toward the tarns below Avalanche Mountain in an area that would provide ample options for potential objectives, while keeping our exposure to hazards low and our shelter from the elements as high as possible. What kind of shelter, you ask? One of my favorite kinds. 

If you’ve backcountry ski toured with me to any extent, you’ll have witnessed my almost maniacal attraction to dense stands of trees, caves, overhanging boulders; anywhere that nature provides a natural roof. Finding these little magical escapes from an otherwise extremely inhospitable environment is one of my joys in the winter mountains. As we passed by a box-truck sized boulder en route to our planned camp, I couldn’t help but imagine what we could do with this boulder if the whole group spent an hour shoveling and building. 

Unsure what to make of this strange development, but game for a new experience, the team jumped into gear, first clearing the snow from beneath the boulder to create a dry void, then building height on the exterior snow walls, before finally capping the gap between the boulder and the snow walls with an igloo-block roof. Before you knew it, we had cut benches, laid down sit pads, and were dry and comfortable on the inside, looking out at a barrage of big, wet, snowflakes. 

Alas, this day’s storm looked like it would provide us with a lot more saturation than quality, so we opted to skip the afternoon ski tour. We’d round out the day by erecting our personal shelters (a mix of tents and floorless shelters,) tinkering with the initial shaping of a quarter pipe feature on our home boulder, and enjoying warm drinks and a hot dinner in the comfort of the boulder cave.  

DAY 2: Throughout the night, the tap, tap, splat, splat sounds of snow on nylon had been our lullaby. We awoke to find 6-10” of dense snow covering the landscape and set about getting ready with visions of much better conditions to be found as we climbed higher. The crossing of Snow Lake was a visual feast, as fog, clouds and sunshine battled on the surface of the lake and the surrounding cliffs and summits, providing a spectacular variety of moods to be enjoyed and captured.

A pleasant climb took us to Gem Lake and to the Southeast Peak of Wright Mountain. The forecasted heavy winds thankfully failed to materialize, and instead we were treated to swirling clouds and intermittent sun breaks, which simultaneously created a beautiful palate for photography, and made the already thick, heavy, unstable snow, even more so. With the surface snow bonding poorly, and the concerns of deeper instabilities, we opted to play mini-golf in the micro terrain on the upper north-facing benches of the zone while Max Djenohan more than earned his dinner by bootpacking countless laps on photogenic features while I worked with the clients to line up interesting angles. 

Cliff drops, powder slashes, wall hits, backflips, methods, step downs. Max gave us all he could and we racked up the shots, all the while keeping our eyes to the hills as the distant peaks played hide and seek, and gave us tantalizing hints of their full grandeur.

As is always the case, this style of photography ate up the hours, and we soon found ourselves just a few hours from sunset with some ground to cover between us and the comforts of camp.

Surprisingly good skiing on the east aspect brought us back to Snow Lake, where a total whiteout made us grateful for the morning’s skin track across the lake. Once to the east end of the lake, a period of calm, comfortable weather gave us a casual stroll back to camp, where we put on warm layers, grabbed our stoves and dinners, and retreated to the comforts of the boulder cave. 

The curse of multi-day ski touring in harsh weather is that you’ve usually got two modes; you’re either keeping warm by moving (skinning, skiing, climbing), or you’re keeping warm in your tent and sleeping bag. This is fine if it’s just you and a partner, but in a larger group, so much of the social elements break down when everyone retires to their tents after the day of skiing. This is where the true benefit of the boulder cave was revealed to us. Having a large, dry, sheltered, warm(ish) place where we could all gather as a group extended the joys of the day by hours as we cooked meals, then hot drinks, then more hot drinks while we munched on chocolate and shared jokes and stories that devolved toward that most basic level of childlike humor that we keep in reserve for only our most immersive mountain time among good friends. We finally retired to our cocoons only once we were genuinely ready for bed, and were rewarded with the deep sleep of the truly exhausted. 

DAY 3: We woke to cool temperatures and scattered snow showers, but our latest forecast update from our satellite text communications told us that these conditions weren’t destined to last long. Hesitant to push our luck with the certainty of impending mountain rain, and the possibility for a large natural avalanche cycle, we opted for some modest objectives close to camp before a mid-morning exit. 

Fortunately, the aforementioned quarter pipe was pretty much good to go, so Max treated us to a breakfast of hand plants and rodeo flips mere feet from our beds. A bolder-strewn pillow field below a nearby ridgeline provided a convenient second venue and our time was spent studying snow textures on the dynamic landscape while Max hiked a few laps on a pillow feature.

Unfortunately, extremely sticky snow kept the big airs he had in mind somewhat out of reach, so we settled for a couple of little poppers before Trevor let us know that it was time to run from the hills before the atmospheric river smackdown arrived.

An uneventful but increasingly soggy exit out the Alpental valley had us back to the trailhead under a consistent rain by noon. With time left on the calendars that we had all cleared for the duration of the week, we did what any self-respecting backcountry skier does when the rain compels an early exit. Food and beer at Commonwealth. It’s been said many times before, but there’s nothing better than that first meal when you’ve been living out of a backpack for a few days. The melty cheese and buttery bread of that grilled cheese just hits different when you’re been eating out of a bag. Don’t get me started on the hoppy bite and bubbly tang of a locally sourced IPA. Yes, I’d love another, thanks. 

When asked what the highlight of the trip was, the group universally agreed that the boulder cave took the cake. Once more proving that it’s not the snow quality, the weather, the photographic conditions. It always comes down to the simple joy of having time to just hang out in the mountains among friends that makes the whole enterprise worthwhile. I want to express my deep gratitude to my guests and co-hosts in keeping the vibes high and squeezing all of the fun possible out of this challenging set of conditions. It was an honor and joy to spend some uninterrupted mountain time with you all. Looking forward to the next one!