Cornucopia Hut Ski Trip - Mar 26-29, 2026
Left home bright and early Thursday morning to drive to the southern side of the Wallowa Mountains in eastern Oregon. The day was cool, with temps in the 40s, and we arrived in the town of Halfway, Oregon to meet up with the caretaker/guide for the hut. The guy was a classic ski bum character (you meet a lot of similar folks in Alaska who found what they loved at 20-30 years old and have just maintained the lifestyle for decades since) and hadn't been up there for the past 5 days, leaving him unsure of conditions and ending up giving us quite a bit of incorrect information (in between sharing dirty jokes that didn't really land with a group that was 70% women).We were told that the snow line started right after the parking area to skin up to Cornucopia Hut and it was about a mile hike, but repeatedly had to strip off our skis and carry pulks with food and other supplies up patches of dirt. The trek wound up being over 2 miles with 1000ft elevation gain and it took almost 3 hours with the repeated stops to attach skis to our backs and carry the gear. Definitely would have been smarter to pack large backpacking bags and carry an empty day pack for touring if we had known the conditions would be this bad, but we eventually made it and started to get settled in.
Water collection was managed by melting snow on the wood stoves and filtering, which is pretty standard. What wasn't standard was the barrel out in the open provided as a bathroom instead of an outhouse - apparently there is typically enough snow to block people's view but in this year of less than 50% snowpack in the PNW, no such luck. We were getting off to a rough start and unsure we would even have decent enough conditions to do a ski tour at all, on top of being crammed into small shed huts and pooping in full view of all your pals. We got settled in, cooked up a bunch of food, and decided to do a small exploratory tour the next day to check out the snowpack at a slightly higher elevation and see if we could plan any lines that might be good for the group.
The next morning, we slept in a bit and cooked up breakfast burritos before packing for the day and strapping on skins. We skinned up about 700ft to the fire lookout on nearby Summit Point and enjoyed views over the valley before turning to scope out Cornucopia peak itself. We continued on a long traverse to a nearby ridge that we had been told had some good lines on all sides. The day was warm and sunny, and the snow was getting very soft by the time we arrived on the ridge/plateau beneath Cornucopia Peak. We hung out here and had lunch before hitting a couple laps on the bowl facing west as the snow softened to corn.
As the more experienced ski tour-ers of the group, a friend and I skinned a little further towards the mountain to pick out a line for the next day and discuss avalanche danger and terrain traps. We scouted some good options along Cornucopia's ridge, and decided to wait until the morning to make sure the weather cooperated before making a final decision. The day finished off by building a kicker on the hill just below the huts and sending it a few times before enjoying some pesto pasta for dinner.
The next morning started at 7am with pancakes and eggs before packing for the day and beginning our skin up at around 9. The morning was cloudier than expected, which was in some ways a relief after the punishing sun reflecting off the snow the day before, but also meant the snow stayed icy due to the recent thaw-freeze cycles. We followed the previous day's line up to the ridge/plateau beneath Cornucopia peak, skipping the detour to the fire lookout. After chatting with the group, we chose a line to ascend to Cornucopia's ridge and hopefully enjoy some spring snow turns on the way down.
I set the skin track on the way up to the ridge, which climbed about 850ft in just under a mile. The next hour was just about gritting your teeth as we zig-zagged back and forth across the face of the mountain, performing what feels like an endless amount of kick turns in between stretches of climbing.A couple of the people in our group had just picked up touring this season and did an incredible job of sticking with it as things got tough. It's never an easy feat to do your first ski tours and the frustration of dialing in technique deserves to be applauded.
We arrived on the ridgeline around noon and hung out for a bit enjoying the views and snacking before we traversed closer to the peak and transitioned to finally enjoy the best part of the day: an uninterrupted run of downhill skiing in excellent spring conditions!
We pushed off from the ridge and swooped down along the face of the mountain. By this point the warm temperatures had turned the snow into something between corn and slush and the sun was peaking out from behind the clouds. Letting out unintelligible whoops and yells, we wove around each other in a dance and laughed as we sprayed snow behind us with each turn. Touring is absolutely a labor of love where you put in 4-5x the amount of time climbing as you do getting to ski down, and you bet we were enjoying every moment of the payoff.At the bottom, we stopped for lunch on the plateau before skinning up a bit and then half traversing, half skiing back down to the huts while dodging patches of dirt and vegetation that had revealed themselves in the sun over the last few days. We ended with some more runs at our kicker and sat outside reading in shorts before the sun got lower and the wind kicked in, prompting us to move inside for the night. We cooked up tacos for dinner and because there wasn't space in the huts for card games, hung out and talked and played around with kazoos we had found inside. Sunset hit with spectacular colors due to the increased cloud cover and we sipped hot toddies while enjoying the glow.
The final count for the day was 7.3 miles, 2400ft of elevation gain, and 5 hours moving on skis. Needless to say, we hit bedtime pretty early.
The final morning we cooked up some quesadillas using whatever was left over from previous meals, packed up, and cleaned the huts before starting our descent back towards the cars. Although the snow had melted out even more since we initially came up, our descent was much faster and easier as we had less to carry and the pulks slid pretty easily over dirt on the way down. It took about an hour to get back to the cars and then we kept in touch via Rocky Talkie as we drove to find a place to stop for brunch. We wound up stopping at a diner in Baker City, OR called the Mother Lode which was built out of multiple train cars welded together and made everything out of sourdough - I'm talking pancakes, cinnamon rolls, whatever you can imagine. The waitress was incredibly friendly and the food was excellent as well as filling, exactly the type you need after a few days of burning high calories in the backcountry. Here we said our goodbyes and parted ways to drive home.