(Trying To) Get Smart

Ever heard the saying, "I'd rather be lucky than good"?  Unfortunately, as I like to tell avalanche course students, luck is a poor risk management strategy.

I'd rather be good than lucky.

And part of being good is approaching the mountains with a healthy dose of intelligence and humility.  Luck runs out eventually.

Parker and I were really fired up to explore a ski descent of the original Briggs Route on the Grand Teton yesterday, but 9-18" of new snow (depending on which site you look at) combined with strong winds out of the northwest made us suspect that avalanche conditions would be too touchy up there.  So we pulled the plug.

Better to be good than lucky.

The North Face of Buck seen from the South Teton, with the summit of Mt. Wister in the foreground.  The Newc is the right-hand couloir, starting in the notch to the right of Buck's summit.

We shifted our sights to the Newc Couloir on the North Face of Buck Mountain.  (Named after Mark Newcomb, who made the first known descent of it in 1995.)  STEEP, narrow, and long, the Newc faces just about dead north, so the prevailing winds shouldn't have loaded it up and any storm snow instability had probably sluffed out of it.

Working against us was the forecasted cloudy morning and winds; but with the right timing the clouds would burn off and we would be sheltered from the wind in the couloir, right?

Also working against us was that this was our last day off before a long string of guiding and avalanche course work.  In reality, we knew we were going to be a day early for primo weather, but them's the breaks.

Feeling pressure to get after it?  No doubt.

We had a lovely skin up 25-Short in the wee hours of the morning, topping out just after sunrise with gorgeous views into the valley below.  The final ridge showed obvious and significant effects from our recent winds--scouring on the crest with some new wind-slab development on the upper East- and Southeast-facing slopes.

Photo: Josh Parker

Standing at the top, with winds ripping through the higher peaks and a wall of clouds blocking the view into Avalanche Canyon, we knew pretty clearly that the Newc wasn't in the cards.  Crap.

What we could see of the high peaks made us feel good about our decision to forego the Grand--it looked well-loaded up, and there were fresh avalanche crowns on the East Face of the Middle Teton.

This was the view into Avalanche Canyon from the top of the Turkey Chute.  Damn.

We had a good conversation about it, and decided that it was just going to be a good day for powder skiing.  So, with gorgeous pow below us to the east we decided to make an initial run back down the slopes of 25-Short.  And it was damn fine.

After a little assessment...Photo: Josh Parker

...The powder was quite nice.Photo: Josh Parker

"This is the first time I've woken up at 3am to go powder skiing!"  Parker getting some powder turns on the sunny side.

The skin back up was sunny and warm, and when we hit the top we decided to check out the Turkey Chute for a second run on the day.  

The entrance to the Turkey Chute has been blown a bit thin.  At least there's no avalanche hazard.

There was a heavily wind-loaded pocket on the left side, but the rest was boottop, firm powder glued in place.  So how to manage it?  Stay to the center/right and rip it.

Dense, fast powder glued into the Turkey Chute.  Sick.

Yup, that was fun.

And it stayed good all the way to the bottom of the canyon.Photo: Josh Parker

It was a lovely day to skate out of the mountains, but look at the wind up high!  Brrr.

It did sting a bit to turn back from the Newc, but ultimately we made the best decisions with the information we had at the time.  If I had it to do over again I'd do the same thing, and that feels good.