Burgundy filling removal service and a return to Polonium viscosum.

On early Wednesday morning, I skinned up Snowbowl for a few solo laps on our local Springuary snowpack.  I managed to shave 5 minutes off of my previous time for 1h10m to the top of Point Six.  The 800' NE face of Point Six offered excellent sparse tree skiing with good quality firm old powder into Burgundy basin.  Next, I skinned up the headwall and up Burgundy ridge to the first open shot and dropped in.  I did this at 9AM, and the corn was still quite hard.  Like concrete really, and the previous week's worth of canoe tracks left by afternoon slackcountry enthusiasts made the whole thing quite the jarring ride.  The ski out via Jenny bowl was about as bad (with more trees), but the ice made for fast travel conditions, and I was back at the truck just before 11, for a total of 4800' done in around three and a half hours.  P.S.:  learn to kick-turn, you shuffling Fritschi-wielders.  You know who you are.

I exchanged working Friday for Saturday, and joined Casey for the long Bitterroot classic of Gash Point to Sky Pilot.  After whiteout conditions on top of the primary objective and an epic midday bonk made last year's version of this tour less than ideal, I was looking forward to a shot at completing this in better time and better style.  We left the truck at 6:36, and quickly reached the upper Gash Creek trailhead on the icy boot pack/skin track (depending on the time of day).  Above this, icy conditions and sparse coverage made skinning the (lack of a) skin track frustrating until reaching the Gash Point approach ramp.  Once upon level ground, the firm snow made for fast going, and we summited Gash Point just over two hours into the day, stopping for a moment on the ascent to admire the sunrise over the Anacondas, far to the Southeast.

On the route to Bear Lake, we decided to traverse only when the fall line riding was not good (though generally tending west), which turned out to be an ideal tactic, as there is an abundance of south facing glades that empty upon a low angle bench that delivers the careful rider directly to the lake with a relative absence of calf burning sidehilling.

From Bear Lake to the base of the North face was strenuous, involving alot of steep and icy sidehilling with harscheisen.  This tour would have been miserable without them.  I advise all objective-minded splitboarders to pick up a pair (the Spark R&D model is great).  They really weigh nothing and have turned extreme frustration into mild inconvenience a few times for me now. 

Slush on ice approaching Sky Pilot's N. face.

Looking back at the Sweathouse/Bear Ck. divide.  Gash Point is just off image to the right.

 The boot up the N. Face was straightforward, with a bit of punching into voids due to the talus slope and very shallow snowpack.  Sky Pilot sees a lot of wind, and the face was in poor condition.  While we were there, winds were around 30mph sustained with gusts to 50mph.  It was interesting watching sastrugi form, but also a little unpleasant.   
 

Casey sky piloting.

Just above the choke of the North Face, managing some weird sastrugi conditions.

Skiing down the face was fine, if a little bumpy, and the choke was fun.  The lower part of the face that had experienced less wind was fine, and we enjoyed a high speed burn back down to Bear Lake, dodging some crevasse-like glide cracks that had opened on the slabs of smooth granite above it.

The 2300' skin back up to Gash Point was like sitting inside a snowy, slippery oven.  We managed to do it in just over an hour.

As a bonus, we decided to take advantage of the stable conditions, and ski the short couloir that drops from the ridgeline into North Bowl.  I've been wanting to ski this line for years, but hadn't gotten around to it.  We booted the 150' chute Junior High style, snowboards assembled and used as pseudo-ice axes.  The ski down was steep and chalky.  Including this line greatly increases the satisfaction of skiing North Bowl, and comes highly recommended.  Watch out for the man-eating void at the top.  

Looking down the obvious couloir above North Bowl.  Does anyone know if this fine fellow has a name?

After a rocky and slushy egress from Gash Lake back to the Gash Point ramp, we skied the burn nearly to the upper trailhead until things got too thin.  A bit of walking, a bit more riding, and more walking got us back to the truck just after 3, for a round trip of around 8:30, with 8900' of climbing (calculated via topo) and around 15 miles.
 
      

Fall and Winter recap, and a return to posting.

I haven't posted a blog entry in three months, not because of a lack of content, but because of a lack of motivation, and as I sit here typing this, I realize that trying to recap in narrative form would very likely be tedious and unfocused.  To that end, I'm just going to post some (captioned) pictures in rough chronological order of some fall and early winter hijinks. 

Actually, reviewing my collection here, it looks like it's just going to be early winter on the picture front.  During fall, I mucked around in the brush looking for deer, worked too much, and went on some good (if not objectively successful) runs with Brian in the Missions. 

Scrambling up the tricky headwall between North and South Glacier Peaks in the Missions.  We had intended to make a go at traversing from here to East St. Mary's, but the deep and hard packed snow, and lack of adequate mountaineering equipment deterred us.  I also admit that the exposure had me a little bit nervous.

First ski of the year, up Gash Point.  As always with these early season journeys, the low elevation log vaulting was frustrating.  Also, we set off an avalanche of non-negligible size. 

Shenanigans atop Brundage near McCall, ID, where Molly and I spent Christmas with family.  Over the week we went skiing so many times, drove a snowmobile for the first time (to Burgdorf!), shot skeet in a neighborhood, all while enjoying tremendous views of the Lick Creek Range. 

While in McCall, Louie and I enjoyed a skin up the locally prominent Jughandle Mountain, where we enjoyed some of the most magical glade skiing I've had the privilege of shredding.  It was sort of deep for Louie though, because he has short legs.  He still enjoyed the powder and sunshine.

On New Year's, Austin and I skinned to Point Six in some eerie clouds, before dropping a few laps down Jenny Bowl.  I am now in love with the Snowbowl backcountry, and especially these machine groomed skin tracks that they set with their tractors. 

Annual Molly's birthday cabin trip, this time to Zip's cabin on the south border of Glacier National Park, in the Flathead Range, more or less.  Big country, dense trees, great snow, good weather.  Mickey and I happened upon a moose, but it wasn't big enough to try and kill us. 

Looking towards the southern border of the GNP from an unnamed peak on the south side of US-2 near Zip's cabin.  I got a new camera, and it does panoramas.

Early mornings atop Point Six with clear skies always put ideas in the head.  1h15m to the Death Star by the way.  I'm hoping to hit an hour by the end of the season, but that might be a tall order on the splitboard. 

Harscheisen!   Le Couteaux!  The only reason we had a good day on that albedonous Mission sastrugi.  E. St. Mary's lifetime summit number five in fine style and 8800' for the day.  Also, despite expectations, my IT band (which has been a source of major consternation for the last month) did not explode on the icy descending bootpack (or is it just called a hike?)  

 Shadows on the No Fish Lake basin.  My favorite backcountry green circle.

Louie was attacked by a sled dog yesterday.  It pretty much toothed him drive-by style at 15mph.  The musher was legitimate with us though, and is splitting the veterinary costs of getting this handsome fellow (ladies, he's single) stitched up.  And how big a baller is he?  He still ran five miles back to the truck without complaining.

Looking forward to more days pirating Snowbowl's access road, hut trips in the Bearteeth, Sawteeth, and Swanteeth, and Louie's leg fur returning.