When we started, visibility was mediocre and there was about six inches of fresh snow from the night before. By day's end, the six inches had grown to fourteen and the light was about as flat as it gets.After skinning about a mile and gaining modest elevation, we came to our destination--the steep slope I watched snowmobilers wallow around on a few weeks ago. Since reports indicated the snow had stabilized, we hoped to get some steep turns in. We dug a snowpit and performed a compression test. Things were looking good. Nothing sheared during our compression test until we hammered on the snow as hard as we could repeatedly.
Onword, searching for a way around a band of rocks:
We eventually abandoned the skins and booted up the final pitch:
Getting beat by the wind on the way up:
After poking around a bit on the top trying to figure out the best descent line, I dropped in. As expected, there was tons of sluff from the new snow--much more than I had ever experienced. When combined with the steep pitch and my alpine-skier-in-telemark-gear getup, skiing the initial pitch was one hell of an adrenaline rush--more than I had had in years. Josh followed and met me at a safe spot beneath some rocks half way down the initial pitch:
With the poor visibility, we never were able to get a good picture of the entire pitch. However, Josh caught this gem of me making turns near the bottom of the face--check out that ridiculous grin:
The snow was incredible--you could have used a snorkel. 
Here's Josh reflecting on the best turns either of us ever had:
With the light getting poor, we had just enough time for one final run through the trees. Here I am trying not to run into the largest snowflake ever:
A very good day, indeed.
1 comment:
Ok, so i dont know how to fully explain the day we had skiing. At first the words: epic, steep, snorkel, and cant see, come to mind, but leaving it at this would simply not do the day justice. It was the best day i have had. There were no lines or life tickets, the snow was as deep as anything i have ever skied... and we skied some killer steeps and trees! I literally found myself hacking up snow balls because so much went into my mouth on every turn i made! Of course the fact i had a huge grin the entire time might have helped facilitate this action. It is because of trips like this i know why i am getting into backcountry skiing and will continue to get that weird feeling in my stomach the night before a skiing outing.
Josh
Post a Comment