Togwotee Pass

The Wife and I headed out Saturday for a little skiing up on Togwotee Pass with a few friends. Since The Wife and I are greenhorns at backcountry skiing and the snow has been marginal, we kept things pretty mellow.We parked near the "N" in the map above and followed a circular clock-wise route up the hill climbing some 1600 feet. This is the same area where Togwotee Mountain Lodge operates a snowcat skiing operation and, although it's easier to get to the top with a snowcat, I was glad to ski epic powder without the $349 per person pricetag.

As I eluded to in an earlier post, the snow conditions have been very marginal this year. However, since it hadn't snowed in a while, things had begun to stabilize. On this day, it was warm and sunny with huge surface hoar.

I knew it was going to be a good day when Aaron blazed the entire skin path himself, leaving the easy skinning to the rest of us--I'll ski with that guy anytime.The climb went quick. After crossing an initial open field, we skinned through trees for a bit then were able to follow a snowcat path the rest of the way to the top. Once at the top, we were able to take a minute to enjoy the view, chow down a quick snack and get stoked for the descent. Here's Aaron making the switch:Karta, wondering where her snack is:
Karl and Darci chowing down:Enjoying the view:Karl getting his stoke on while I rip my skins off:The ski down was great. We had sugar snow mixed with light, soft powder the whole way. Here's The Wife getting after it:Not fully satisfied, we all skinned back up about 2/3 of the way and took another lap through the best lines:During our second lap, things warmed up considerably. Since a couple of us heard whumphs on the climb, we took the easy route and called it a day. The Wife getting after it on round two:Thoroughly worked, it was time to enjoy a final snack, give the dogs a drink and head home.