In For Round Two

I've been wanting to repeat the 'Round Our World tour for a while now, hoping to complete it faster this year.  Without getting lost.  And with better skiing conditions.

So with the Tetons in the middle of a multi-week storm cycle and a DEEP snowpack on the ground, when Scotty said he'd be interested in giving it a go what could I do but say yes?

But how to do it...

There's a big "light is right" push in the backcountry world these days, with fanatics logging 10,000'+ days on skinny little munchkin skis and faerie-slipper boots.  Sure, that's probably pretty fun, but if I can cover 12,000' and 20 miles and have fun on the downhills on some girthier gear, why wouldn't I go for that option?  With that in mind, I pulled my shit together and slapped skins on my new Artisan splitboard from Voilé.  Take that, you aerobic mutant Dorais brothers!

I know, I know--with my historical preference for approach skis and solid boards, it could strike one as an appalling about-face for me to start using a split.  I might even be accused of "waffling", if I were running for president.  But to be honest, my aging back is tiring of hauling a snowboard around, and the thought of having a touch more float and glide while skinning is pretty attractive.

Having had the Artisan out for a single day of guiding prior to this adventure I still had some efficiencies to develop, but what a sweet ride!  Sure, heavier than your honeycomb-balsa-wood-core-skinnies with aluminum edges, but damn this thing was a blast in the pow.  And with the split skis being wider than my boot underfoot it's a trailbreaking machine.

Here we go!

Loved the stillness of being the only people in Mail Cabin.

Not that it felt easy breaking trail out there on Saturday.  We were the first car in the parking lot, and got fresh tracks right from the start all the way to the top of Lone Pine.  Ankle-deep soon turned to knee-deep and heavy, with temps just south of rain resulting in super wet snowfall.

Welcome to the White Room?  No, welcome to the Wet Room.

That said, one of the benefits of breaking trail uphill is that it typically results in breaking trail downhill as well, and the turns off the back of Lone Pine were epic.  Watching Scotty make wiggle-turns as I ripped past him I realized once again that

I                                   LOVE                           SNOWBOARDING. 

(Especially in waist-deep powder that I had to sweat to get.)

We got Burbanked once again this year, wandering around through the nondescript woods of the Burbank Triangle for an hour or so until we finally found ourselves on the map and headed for Oliver Peak.  Thankfully Scotty brought a compass.

I was really wishing for one of Voilé's revolutionary Revelators here--not steep enough to ride but enough downhill to make skins slow and awkward.  A splitboard with scales?!  Sick!

Wandering out of the Burbank Triangle.

Scotty battles sideways snow on the shoulder of Oliver.  At least it was drier up here.

The overall theme for the day became wet-and-heavy snow down low and nuking winds up high, with a powdery sweet spot somewhere at mid-elevations.  We forged through sideways snowfall, little visibility, and a cold left cheek to the top of Oliver, and then made a rapid transition to downhill-mode for a couple thousand feet of amazing powder to Stateline.  Once again, the Artisan ruled the day.

Crossing the log over the creek at Stateline.  We were already soaking wet, but an unintentional swim seemed like a bad option anyway.  (It's probably thigh-deep here.)

Down at Stateline we discovered that the Pass highway was closed, and that the enormous parking lot was nearly full.  Thankful that we weren't trying to drive anywhere, we crossed the road and started skinning up through the forest towards Talbot's and the West Ridge of Mt. Taylor.  This was the one stretch of the day where we had a track broken for us--someone chose the south-facing aspens for their powder turns and had put a track in to the ridgetop.

Walking a mile in someone else's track?  So good.

Ugg.

And then it ended.  Skinning 4 miles and almost 4000' from Stateline to the top of Taylor takes a long time.  Add in knee-deep, thick trailbreaking and it takes a really long time.

Getting close to the top of Mt. Taylor.(?)

The breeze picked up as we gained elevation, pleasantly drying out our saturated clothing, and turned gale-force as we neared the summit of Taylor.  It's difficult to describe the experience of stumbling to the top of a mountain in shrieking winds and snowfall with absolutely zero visibility and realizing that though you're not sure exactly where you are you know you're surrounded by major avalanche terrain.  It's daunting.  And mildly scary.

I called Erica from the summit (once I discovered that it was 4:30pm) to ask for a raincheck on date night, and forgiveness for having to ask such a lame favor.

Bad husband.

Saintly wife.

The view from the top of Taylor.  Sweet.

Back to business, I put on all of the clothing I had with me and we started the process of figuring out our trip down.  With the heavy snowfall and high winds, we knew that we had to thread the needle down the Southeast Ridge to avoid big avalanche terrain.  The trick was how to find the needle.  We weren't even totally sure we were actually on the summit, and could barely make out the surface of the snow let alone terrain features below us.

A little bit of guesswork and brief views of a rock or a stubby tree led us down to the false summit and then to what seemed like the Southeast Ridge, or at least a relatively low-angle route downhill.  After ripping skins and committing to downhill travel, Scotty broke out his probe and employed some advanced route-finding technique while I fought off a vertigo-induced urge to vomit.

Sometimes this is the only way to tell where the ground is...

And then we made out a familiar rock outcropping and there we were--smack on the Southeast Ridge!  Some combination of dead reckoning whiteout navigational skill and good luck put us right where we wanted to be, with a couple thousand feet of deep powder and safe terrain to the bottom of Coal Creek.  Good thing too--every little roll and drift that we ski-cut on our descent shattered and released in small avalanches.


But the turns were damn fine...

Scotty takes off down the Southeast Ridge of Mt. Taylor...

...And disappears into the foggy pow.

"That's where we need to sneak through the cliffs below."  Threading the needle.

And finding the goods.

Mmm, deeeep.

Mmm, deeeeeper.

Reaching Coal Creek at 5:15pm, we reluctantly had to admit that it would be unwise to start the 3000' ascent up Mt. Glory to continue the tour.  We might have been able to break trail to the summit before dark, but we would be fully committing ourselves to navigating by headlamp through big avalanche terrain with reactive new slabs on the trip down to Teton Pass.  And then making our way through Edelweiss, Columbia Bowls, and back into Mail Cabin by headlamp as well, in heavy snowfall, seemed like a continuation of a bad idea.

So we pointed ourselves down the luge run and banked turns to the parking lot, where we once again had it all to ourselves.

"Dude, where's my car?"

First in, last out; "Bell-to-bell," as Scotty put it.  Standing back at the beginning 11 hours later, with 12" of fresh snow on top of the car, we had to question what the hell we had just done.  16 miles and 8,000'+ of brutal trailbreaking in a sometimes-sideways blizzard--oof.  We had some phenomenal powder turns, to be sure, but an absurd amount of travel to get to them.

Though I would like to say that we got to see a ton of amazing country, in reality we couldn't see much of anything for most of the day.  Lots of shades of white and grey, with dark trees and red backpacks to add spice.

Good workout?  Check.

Good adventure?  Yup.

Good fun?  Sure.

Would I do it again?  Absolutely.

I guess this is just what we do when storms and stability keep us from getting too rowdy in the alpine.

Splitboard and all.

Going Solo

I skied solo today.

I like skiing solo.  I like snowboarding solo, too.  Not every day, but sometimes it's nice to be in the mountains on my own.  Sometimes I go mountain biking solo.  Sometimes I go road biking solo.  Sometimes I go trail running solo.  Sometimes I cook dinner solo.  Sometimes I make love solo.

Wait a minute...

I like the ease of being on my own, not making conversation, just flowing through the mountains.  I make my own decisions, based on my own observations.  Sometimes I enjoy the company of friends, but other times I find I'm my own best company.  I don't have to hurry to keep up, or wait for anybody else.  My pace and my breathing mesh and I focus on breaking the trail in front of me.

Sastrugi and Scree

When we drove over the Pass at 2am on Friday, there were at least 20 cars in the lot, with skiers milling about chatting it up.  After the initial confusion passed, we realized that the full moon had extended the ski day into the wee hours.  Perfectly clear sky, little wind, warm temps--those people were stoked!

Then, driving through Wilson at 3mph trying not to hit drunken revelers wobbling down the middle of Main Street, Scotty said, "Wow--we're up early enough to see them at the end of their yesterday," which struck my half-caffeinated brain as pretty profound.

Brrr, it's early.
Photo: Scotty Palmer

Scotty had a day off from patrolling up at Targhee and Twinkie had come over from Lander for a few days of skiing, so we figured we should do some exploring up high.  The plan was to skin into Garnet Canyon under the full moon and head up toward the Grand Teton for a ski adventure up there.  With last weekend's 3'+ of snowfall and high winds, we figured we had a 50/50 chance of getting turned around by poor stability, but you don't know if you don't go.

So we went.

A lovely, clear, windless morning made us hopeful as we skinned out of the parking lot, and totally sandbagged us about the conditions up high.  Once we got across Bradley Lake and up into the canyon we were breaking trail through 20cm of soft snow in our shirtsleeves.  Amazing.  Under the light of the full moon we could see some spinners blowing off of Nez Pierce and Cloudveil Dome, but we still weren't feeling a breath of wind.

We finally started feeling a light breeze in the Meadows, and the snow turned from shallow pow to windboard.  Leading the charge up the North Fork, Scotty finally called back to say that the slab had started to feel/sound hollow.  So we dug a pit to test the snow and gather some data.

At 5am.

In the dark.

Thump on it!

High strength, with full propagation on multiple tests and poor structure.  Probably hard to trigger, but likely to produce big avalanches.  Predictable?  Sort of.  Manageable?  Not really.  Using our powers that our friend Lynne (The Authority) calls "extrapolating upwards", we deduced that if we didn't like the stability on these wind-loaded slopes at 10,000' we wouldn't like it any better in high-consequence terrain at 12,000'.  Not entirely surprising, but not entirely what we were hoping for either.

I submitted the observation that if we stripped skins and headed downhill we could make it to Nora's in time for breakfast.

Scotty countered that we had woken up at 12:45am and skinned to 10,000' before sunrise, dammit, and we might as well make something of the day.  With my priorities properly realigned, we decided to venture up into the South Fork of Garnet Canyon and see what the Southwest Couloir on the Middle Teton had to offer--different wind patterns, different terrain, different snowpack.

Making our packs lighter.

Photo: Scotty Palmer

So we left our ropes, harness, and ice axes tucked in some rocks and without knowing it left behind good snow and pleasant weather as well.  What was windboard in the Meadows turned bulletproof, then 40cm-tall sastrugi, and finally the snow had been blown away entirely and we were walking through scree toward the north shoulder of the Middle.

Starting to feel the breeze.

Q: Dude, it snowed over 3 feet last weekend!  Where did it all go?
A: South Dakota

In what was now a howling wind, Twinkie inexplicably lost his mojo and decided to turn around and wobble back down to a sheltered, sunny spot for a nap.  Scotty and I continued with the exfoliation, donning crampons when we found hard enough snow that our boots weren't even making a mark.

Check out that wind-etching!

Dude, what are we doing?
Photo: Scotty Palmer

But optimism prevailed.  Maybe the wind would die down when we turned the corner into the couloir.  Maybe the couloir had been protected from the storm's northwest winds and we would find blower pow up there.  Maybe a faerie would flutter past and throw pixie dust on my face, and I would finally be able to grow a beard.


In reality, the snow just got worse as we climbed and while we no longer had a snow stability issue we had to admit that what started as a ski day had turned into a day of climbing into the alpine with skis.  With that change in perspective, we climbed up wind-eroded, rime-blasted, shallow snow in a gale, sometimes scampering over rock where the snow had blown off entirely and sometimes canyoneering up an armpit-deep runnel that the wind had given overhanging walls.

Nice runnel, eh?

Wanna know how to recognize a true adventure?  When you're engaged in a pursuit that you would rather be at home reading about.

No, we actually loved it.  Good character-building fun.

Now that's rime!  Just below the summit.

When we reached the summit, Scotty's toes had gone from cold to completely disconnected from his brain so we dug a sheltered alcove in the sun and did a little belly-warming to bring them back.

Mmm, shelter from the gale.  Happily on top.

It's been a number of years since I warmed another man's feet on my chest.

Then we took a few summit photos, climbed back down 100' to "skiable" snow, and started making "turns" back down the rimed sastrugi in the couloir.

Excellent view of the Grand Teton from the summit of the Middle.

Contemplating 2000' of horror-show skiing.
On a different note, these Voilē V8's are mind-blowing.  Playful, plenty of oomph to plow through thick snow, and their ability to handle these "firm" conditions belied their girth.  Drive them and they will perform.

Just making us better skiers.
Photo: Scotty Palmer

Scotty takes flight mid-turn.

With a few turns here and a bit of downclimbing there we came out of the shade and back into the sun, and turned tail for the canyon bottom and the track back home.  Skis on, skis off, bouncing over/off of sastrugi like it was moguls.  Vicious.

Did we really just do that?
Photo: Scotty Palmer

...And we're outta here.

Below the Meadows the wind magically ceased and we were back to fast powder skiing, bumping off of boulder mushrooms down to a snack in the sun with Twinkie.  With the perspective of a few minutes' separation we were able to chuckle about how bad the conditions were up high, and how good they were down here.

And then it came time to boogie out of the mountains.

Sastrugi and scree--kind of like Leather and Lace, but different.

Christmas and the Apocalypse

Once again this year, with Erica being Jewish and me being indifferent, I chose Christmas as a day for adventuring in the mountains.  I mean no crowds, bluebird skies, fresh powder, and a similarly motivated friend--perfect.

I've skied the Apocalypse Couloir on Prospector's Mountain a few times, and it seemed like the right objective for this day--mid-elevation, sheltered from the wind, protected from solar heating, and it sluffs regularly enough to flush out many of the weak layers that we have in our snowpack.  It would take significant assessment and management to get it done safely, but we agreed that it was a good terrain choice for the day's hazard.

I picked up Scotty Palmer in the dark cold of Jackson on Christmas morning, and what followed was a fantastic day of adventuring in fun terrain, with wonderfully stable snow.

Putting in a fresh skintrack through low-elevation facets was slow work.  Good thing Scotty was there to keep me entertained.

39 degrees seemed like a good slope angle for digging.  Scotty found sluggish storm snow instability.  Nice scenery, too.

Prepping the first rappel.  What a lovely day!

Starting the descent into the deep, dark of the Apocalypse Couloir.
Photo: Scott Palmer

Like a fish...  Hoping that this is the final pitch before we get to skiable snow.  (Big, overhanging ice bulge just where the ropes go out of view.)

Let's put these ropes away and ski!
Photo: Scott Palmer

After stomping a ski cut with no results, Scotty commits to the line.

Mmm, good.  We found wonderful, chalky snow--great edging.
Photo: Scott Palmer

Boing, boing.

Things got narrow for a good long ways in the upper couloir.
Photo: Scott Palmer

And then widened up at the dogleg.
Photo: Scott Palmer

The ice bulge in the narrows of the lower couloir definitely wasn't going to go unroped...

...So Scotty got all newschool-freestyle-jib-jabby with his twin-tip skis on rappel.

And then skied the skinny below the rappel.  Burly.  Look at all of that ice!

For a wider ski, these Voilé Charger BC's edge rather well when the snow turns to ice.
Photo: Scott Palmer

And we're out!  Nice, soft turns to finish it up.

Another amazing day in the Tetons.  I'm thankful to be surrounded by this community of skilled and motivated ski partners to get me fired up, and then help me make good decisions.

Looking forward to the next adventure...

Alive By Luck, Part 2

Getting off of the Deville was way more of a challenge than any of us could have expected, and brought us closer to utter disaster than we had ever been.  The guidebook describes it as being two pitches of rappelling to a snow gully that can be walked down.  The first rappel is pretty easy, and the second is steeper and a bit tricky.  It also says to bear right.  We found the top easily enough, and beginning the rappel below west-facing slopes at noon seemed like an easy decision.  The rappel would take two hours, maybe three tops, and the slopes above wouldn’t receive sun until late in the afternoon.  That was when it all went to hell.

Almost off of the rappel, feeling relieved.

After six hours and multiple pitches of rappelling, waiting, trying to find anchors, and communicating across 60 meters of windy space, touching down at the bottom of the rappel brought intense feelings of relief and release from the stress of working through a situation that felt mildly out of control.  I hit snow with 3 meters of rope left and ecstatically yelled, “It goes!” as I ran down to a shark’s-fin ridge sticking out of the 40-degree slope.  Watching the rest of the crew rappel down and gather on the fin, I completely forgot about the slopes above the rappel, reveling in the release.  The sun had traveled into the northwest sky, igniting the blue of the icefall next to us and turning the snow the same rosy gold color in which we had started the day.

With all of us off the rappel, we relaxed in the euphoria of having done it without injury, of being safe.  We forgot, or ignored, the hazard that still hung above us.  As I finished packing the rope into my pack, Jud traversed across the slope to look up the gully next door and see if that was where the rappel was supposed to end.  The rumbling was far off when he arced his turn back, like thunder in the distance on a clear day, but when he screamed we knew instantly what was wrong.  I looked up at a Niagara Falls of snow thundering over the lip of the cliff we had just rappelled down.  It eclipsed the light of the sky, and we just fled.  I ran, stumbled, and then crouched, curled up in a ball, and waited for it to hit.

__________

It took a remarkably long time for the avalanche to touch down.  I was pretty sure that it would stay on the far side of the fin, that most of us would be out of it’s path.  The slope shook under the roar of the cascade thundering down, and then it was over.  When I stood up and looked around, pockets packed with snow from the air blast, I was amazed to see four of us on the surface.  We raced downslope with transceivers out, searching for Jud in the debris flow a few hundred feet below.  After a couple of minutes that felt like much longer we heard him screaming from down slope, out of view, demanding if we were all okay--was everybody there? 

And that made five—we were all alive.  Looking back up, the rest of the slope was empty; our gear had been carried or blown away, strewn far and wide.   We were ultimately able to retrieve almost everything—most stuff was on the surface.  I happened to step on Jud’s ski, buried 10cm down.  No longer thrilled with the release of coming off the rappel, we silently gathered ourselves together and skied down to safety and the end of the scariest day we’d ever had.

Looking back, the slide seemed enormous--maybe size D3.5. With the 500’ freefall it took over the cliff, being buried seemed like a mild consequence; had we been standing under it, we would have simply been crushed.  As it was, Jud was carried maybe 400 vertical feet, losing both skis and poles, doing his best to stay on top of the debris after ditching his pack.  When it stopped, he was buried face down, but just under the surface.   With a mere push-up, he popped himself out of the snow and grabbed his shovel and probe, ready to search for the rest of us.  It wasn’t until we had all regrouped that he realized he had bruised a rib, and would be moving gingerly for the rest of the trip.  We had come closer to losing our lives than any of us ever had before, or want to again, and for the most part we were just fine.

View from the Illeciliwat Nevé the following day.  The avalanche came from the slope above and to the left of the rappels, debris is visible below.

We were lucky—that was immediately apparent, but also a superficial assessment of what had happened.  It took weeks for me to realize the enormity of our luck.  I pride myself on my competence and ability to use good judgment in the mountains.  Our survival, however, had nothing to do with either competence or good judgment, beyond my choice to regroup on the fin.  (The debris was funneled away from us by this minute feature on the slope.)  We knew that slope above us would avalanche sometime between 6 and 6:30pm--west aspects had been going every evening.  We knew.

But we lost the bigger perspective.  Our survival was incidental.  We had given up our control; this is what scares me most.  To have my safety and that of my comrades dependent on fate, karma, luck, whatever, is to me unacceptable.  That I allowed myself to become so exposed to a hazard that I could no longer manage is terrifying to me.  That we all survived the avalanche with merely a bruised rib was LUCK, pure and simple, and I'm not proud of that.

__________

I had to head back home pretty shortly after we got out of the mountains.  We discussed the avalanche on and off during our last day’s travel, but didn’t say much about it once the trip ended.  I haven’t spoken with any of the guys since I left, other than a couple of emails about sharing pictures.  Thoughts of the avalanche consumed me in the weeks after it happened, but I didn’t have the energy or courage to discuss it with anybody besides my wife.

As months go by and it moves further into my past, the emotion is becoming separated from the event and I am able to focus on what I can learn from the experience.  Stay focused and be attentive to what is happening to the snow around you.  Maintain situational awareness.  Be aware of human fallibility in managing avalanche hazard.  More than concrete lessons, however, what I am taking away is an ability to recognize similar situations and respond appropriately.  I know that I won’t avoid avalanche terrain in the future, but I also hope that I will never again allow myself to become so removed from control over my own safety.