Dorado Needle Attempt

Dorado Needle Attempt

March 12-14, 2026

Eric and Ryan

Dorado Needle has the distinction of the WA Bulger peak I’ve bailed on the most in winter. Before this trip I bailed on three other winter attempts, so now the total is four. In mid March 2020 Matthew and I skied up Cascade River Road 10 miles from snowline one day, then the next day were thwarted by bad weather while hiking up the approach. In January 2024 Anthony and I were able to drive to mile 15 on the road, then snowmobiled up to the trailhead. We broke trail up to the boulderfield, but the snow was deep and going too slow. The boulder field was treacherous and we were making too slow time, so we bailed. Finally, in January 2025 Nick and I drove all the way to the Eldo parking lot, made it up to the Eldo zone, and climbed Austera, Klawatti, and Eldorado. But the wind was too extreme on our last day and we bailed on Dorado Needle.

This year I just got back from bagging country highpoints in south america and Africa all winter, and was hoping to squeeze in at least one winter bulger for the year. I’ve done 83/100 so far, and with fewer left now it’s more difficult to find a window where stable weather and stable snow line up for one of my remaining peaks. It appeared the west north zone might work for the weekend. Usually I’ve found the crux for this zone in the winter is access to the trailhead. Cascade River Road (CRR) is the access road to the zone, but it is not officially maintained by the forest service in winter and is notorious for many fallen trees blocking passage. It can also be covered in snow. It does not have reliable enough snow coverage to be a regular maintained snowmobile route, though.

In past years I’ve had to just park at snowline or at the first fallen tree and walk from there. But to ensure guaranteed access I invested in a good chainsaw and a snowmobile a few years ago. This way I don’t have to wait and hope that someone else clears the road out, since I can do it myself. In general I’ve found high wind events and lowland snow events tend to bring down a lot of trees on cascade river road. In mid December a lot of trees came down in the storms in Washington, and I heard there were a lot of blowdowns on CRR. I was out of the country by then and unable to help, but it appeared someone else cleared the road. I read that people were driving to the Eldorado Gate trailhead throughout January and February, and it was clear of blowdowns and snow-free.

On the wednesday before the weekend, March 11, there was a a high wind event in western washington and the power went out in Issaquah where I live from falling trees. That is generally an indication that CRR also has fresh blowdowns. I wanted to ensure a smooth and fast approach to the trailhead on Friday, so I decided to log out CRR on Thursday. By going a day early I built in some buffer time just in case there were any huge blowdowns that took more than one day to clear. Then I could have all Friday to finish the job.

NOHRSC was showing deep snow above 1500ft on CRR, but I’ve found it generally overestimates snow depth in that valley by at least a foot. Nevertheless, I decided to bring my snowmobile just in case. Thursday morning I drove up to Marblemount by 9am, and encountered the first blowdown just beyond the last cabin, around mile 7. There was a car parked in front of it and a person out walking around. I axed out the little limbs and then the Stihl 391 with 25″ bar made quick work of the rest of the tree. From there I continued up, reaching a blowdown cluster about every mile, which slowed my progress. It’s rare to have a single tree across the road. Instead they usually come down in clusters.

By mile 12 I was clearing another cluster and the saw got pinched in a bind. As I was pulling it out the chain slid off and got nicked up on a metal part of the housing. I took it apart but the chain couldn’t fit back in the groove of the bar. I had forgotten to bring my tools to fix that issue, so the big saw was no longer operable. I still had a smaller 10″ bar electric chainsaw with limited battery life, and an axe. I finished the cut with the little saw, but then tree unexpectedly slid farther into the road!

It was kind of precariously positioned, so I tried to hook some webbing on it and winch it out via another tree. But that didn’t work. So finally I axed another cut in the log. Then I was able to make the end fall so that it didn’t slide farther into the road, and I had just enough room to squeeze the truck around.

I continued driving up to the crest of the 1800ft hill at MP 13, then stopped when the snow was ankle deep. I was nervous about continuing down the other side of the hill if the snow got deeper. But that was just about enough snow to snowmobile. So I unloaded the sled and continued with my axe and electric saw. I cleared a few more blowdowns en route. A few I cleared wide enough so the truck could fit through (in case I wanted to drive that section Friday). But towards the end I just cleared wide enough for the snowmobile so I could ideally make it all the way to the Eldo lot that day and fully assess the blowdown situation. I really wanted to know if there was a 6ft tree over the road so I could make a plan for Friday.

The snow melted down to gravel by MP 15 at Mineral Park Crampground down at 1400ft. Luckily there were occasional snow patches I could hit to cool the sled, but the carbides on the skis took a beating. Surprisingly there were no more blowdowns all the way to the Eldo gate, and I sledded there by 3pm. The snow was ankle deep there and just enough to sled. Interestingly, the Eldo gate was open, which I’ve never seen happen before in winter. I turned around and headed back. On the way out I cleared a few more blowdowns to truck width, leaving just one at MP 15 that was only sled width. I figured I could get that one Friday if needed, but didn’t want to stay out too long that day and risk the snow accumulating too much at the truck to drive out. I made it back to the truck by 4pm as snowfall was intensifying, and drove back to Seattle that night.

Friday it must have been snowing heavy all day at CRR. Ryan and I drove up Friday evening and snow started on the road near Marblemount. We followed fresh truck and snowmobile tracks until the snow got 6″ deep at MP 11 at elevation 1400ft. The tracks continued but I was nervous about the snow getting too deep going over the 1800ft hill between MP 12-15 in the truck, so we stopped there and camped out.

Saturday we started up at 5:30am and made fast time snowmobiling over the hill and down the other side. The truck tracks stopped at the MP 15 blowdown that I had left unfinished. We easily rode around, and it felt nice to finally not have to be balancing through the truck ruts in the snow. We got to the Eldo trailhead by 6:15am and were soon unloaded and heading up. Our packs were heavy with technical climbing gear for the mixed climbing on Dorado Needle.

We walked to the standard crossing just downstream of the parking lot, and then picked up the climbers trail on the other side. The snow was about shin deep and we booted up the trail to the boulderfield a few hours later. The snow coverage at the boulderfield was kind of treacherous. It was just barely enough fresh powder that we could gingerly skin across, but I came close to slipping through gaps a few times. To minimize time in the sketchy boulders we traversed straight across to the boulder bypass option in the trees on the other side. Then we switched back to boots and booted up in the trees to around 5kft. There we put skis back on and ventured back into the boulderfield, where it was now filled in enough to be safe.

We took turns breaking trail up the face to above treeline, and by 2pm were at the base of the standard crossing point to Roush Creek at 6200ft. The trail breaking had taken much longer than expected in the deep fresh powder. We noticed the SE face avy slope at the standard crossing had just slid, likely that morning, in a D1.5 avalanche. This seemed to indicate the forecast Moderate avalanche level was not quite accurate for that area of the west north zone. Other observations made us nervous to proceed, since our planned route up Dorado Needle crossed unavoidable avy terrain.

So we decided to bail. We had a fun ski down the deep powder, and some intense snow squalls happened that were unexpected. To get past the boulderfield we stayed skiers right a the base of some upper cliffs, and this was smooth and safe. We then made it back to the trees and booted back down to the sled by 5pm. Back at the trailhead the snow was gloppy and it was definitely above freezing. This was also not in the forecast, because we were at 2000ft there and freezing levels were supposed to be around 0ft. This unfortunately meant the road would be melting out a bit.

We sledded out, through some bare gravel patches that hadn’t been present on the way in. At MP 15 we stopped and spent an hour clearing out the last blowdown where the truck tracks had stopped. After we finished, that meant the road is now cleared for driving all the way to the Eldo lot, once the snow melts. We made it back to the truck by sunset and then drove back home.

With the warm temperatures predicted, the road will likely be driveable to the Eldo lot within a few days.

At home I inspected my sled and realized the carbides on the skis got ripped off from all the gravel riding. So I’ll have to buy some new ones and fix up the sled. That’s the price to pay for winter access to that zone, though.

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