Limestone Bouldering?

Aki and I spent the weekend camping on the property near Mackay and exploring lots of rock.

Here are some boulders we found, which were sharp but pretty bomber! I'd have a hard time committing to some of the high balls without testing the holds first... but maybe a ladder (or a rope), a brush or two and some crash pads?

Limestone cracks? Yeah!

Is that hold below the lip solid? I hope so!

Nearby is a spring with some amazing pictographs on the surrounding cliffs (not the boulders).

The Chutes of Narnia

Here's a little video from mid winter. The light was terrible but it's worth a quick look. Enjoy.

Springtime in South Central Idaho

I've guided a few hut trips recently and here are some pics from the Pio Yurt as well as the Bench Hut. Conditions in the Pioneers last week were variable and variable. Did I say they were variable? New snow arrived in early April, then the classic Pio recipe of wind and sun wrecked havoc on what would have been powder skiing. We managed to find a bit of cold, soft snow and the scenery was as spectacular as always!

The trip into the Bench Hut was timed just about perfect. Mid to upper elevation snow was cold and dry on shady aspects when we arrived and the sky was blue bird. Temps continued to rise over the course of the three days and the snow began to take a little heat, but the skiing was still great! Let's hope the heat wave subsides and we move into a cycle of corn skiing!

The new Pio Yurt! So much bigger and better!

A quick transition on top of the wind sculpted Peanut.

The Jewels at the Hyndman/Old Hyndman saddle - check out the size of those cornices!

Olin ripping the first pitch of the Thumbline outside of Bench - one of the most classic ski lines around!

Returning back to the hut, skiing the 5th Lake Bowl below the summit of Heyburn.

Chopper dropping in Defib Couloir. No shock advised, even after all that bacon!

The last of cold snow skiing this year? I hope not... Our tracks from earlier in the day on the Thumbline.

Enjoy your spring!

Steamboat Patrol Exchange

Last week, friend and fellow patroller Ryan and I did a patrol exchange with Steamboat, Colorado. Ryan had kayaked in nearby Fish Creek, but neither of us had skied there before. We Arrived to 3" of new snow the first day and another 8" the next day. Steamboat has had a similar winter as us, with low snow totals and lots of warming prior to this most recent weather system. We skied hard the first two days, mostly in bounds and in the clouds. Steamboat has some of the finest tree skiing around! They have done a great job thinning the aspens and lodgepole in skiable "lanes".

Once the storm passed and the weather turned blue bird, we began to tour into the canyon. Most of the runs involved a fair amount of traversing and sidestepping to access steep 200-1000' treed and rocky shots. When they learned that we liked to tour, their snow safety supervisor, Kyle, took us on a couple skinning tours where we were able to get beyond the tracks. Steamboat has some cool terrain with an outstanding group of patrollers. It's a neat corner of Colorado that is very different from the rest of the state. Thanks to Ryan, Sun Valley and the Steamboat Ski Patrol for a great week of skiing!

Dumping...

Ripping through the pillowland.

Steamboat is big. They use to do over a million skier days a year. Now down to about 850K, but they still make money.

Steamboat patroller, Ryan, leading us on a tour.

How's your aspen?

Kyle taking in the view of Fish Creek Canyon. Look closely and you can see the ski tracks.

A tour up Hahn's Peak on our last day.

Ryan topping out. I got pretty use to this view, being in the back. I didn't bring my Dynafits, and instead toured in Gotamas, Dukes and alpine boots... talk about slow and heavy!

Our last tracks at the Boat!

Shangri La Ski Mountaineering

Last weekend my friend and client Carlos and I spent three days ski mountaineering in the Shangri La valley of the Sawtooths. I have been trying to put this trip together now for several years, and Carlos has been committed since day one. For one reason or another, the trips have always fallen through, and this year was almost the same. But after overcoming a few hurdles, Carlos and I found ourselves snowmobiling across Redfish Lake at first light.

Conditions were firm and we saw no instabilities on the ice. In fact the snowmobile overheated due to the lack of loose snow lubricating the track and cooling the engine.

The skin up Redfish Canyon to the turn off to the Elelphant's Perch went fast in the firm conditions and old tracks left by friends weeks before. Soon as we left the old skin track and began touring through the trees up the shady aspect the snow quickly turned to a breakable temperature crust and I began to wonder if the previous warming had foiled our plans to ski cold snow.

Once up in the Shangri La basin, it was apparent that mid to upper elevation conditions were going to be dry and chalky on shady aspects. We found a bit of wind effect, but the sastrugi skied great and windslabs were obvious. After establishing a basecamp we set work picking out and assessing some of the couloirs in the area.

On day two we toured across the lakes and picked out this beautiful line by process of elimination... it was the only one that went all the way that was not rimmed with enormous cornices ready to squash us flat. A 600' skin up the apron brought us to the rock walls and another 600' of booting brought us to the rocky summit.

Camp Life.

On our last day we skied the couloir that's formed between the Goat's Perch and the Eagle's Perch. I've looked at this line for years and in fact you can see it on the banner to this blog. Again we found boot top stale powder in the bowl below the couloir and slightly firmer snow due to the constant sloughing in the couloir itself. We booted until the snow ran out about 15' below the ridge. Above us lay steep rock and the remnants of a cornice I wanted nothing to do with. The couloir averaged about 48*-50* and steepened to 55* for the top third. It was basically a ski width wide at the top, gradually widening and then pinching off again to another ski width near the bottom. Carlos dropped in and skied the first pitch, making it look easy.

Here's Carlos laying some fine tracks below the couloir.

I have a feeling we'll be back... there were just too many lines to ski and not enough time in this special place. Thanks Carlos for making it happen!

Look for more pics and video to come...

Silver Creek Schralpinism

In the latest issue of Backcountry Magazine, Ben Clark talks about combining technical alpine routes with ski descents. The common term for this style of ascent/descent is ski mountaineering, but Ben distinguishes "Schralpinism" as more than slogging up knee deep snow with a mountain axe in hand. Schralpinism has all the technical elements of an alpine route in addition to the commitment of a ski mountaineering descent. This is something that has really peaked my interest in that last few years and with the ice climbing I've been doing this season, I decided to give it a try yesterday.

James and I shouldered packs full of ice and ski gear and headed into Silver Creek in the Boulder Mountains. A snowmobile dispatched the 3 mile approach across the morains in a matter of minutes instead of an hour. We then toured in to the base of the ice on the south buttress of Lightning Point.

The first pitch of the route was a sustained 200' pitch of WI4, made all the more exciting carrying a pack with skis strapped on to it. Near the top of the pitch I was faced with a 20' curtain of chandelier ice or thin veriglass of rock. Looking for security, I began tunneling behind the curtain through what James called "the rabbit hole". A bit of thrashing with pack and skis and a few expletives on my part brought me to short but committing traverse across rock to reach the ice again.

That was definitely the crux of the route. Although we encountered several more short 30'-40' sections of ice, rest of the climb was bootpacking (read: slogging) up a beautiful tight couloir. We topped out with a 100' pitch of mixed but easy rock and snow and continued along the ridge to the top of our descent line.

With skis on and crampons in our packs we made cautious turns in the top of the descent couloir. Initially, things looks well covered and I thought we might be linking some good turns, but knowing how rocky the Boulders are, I had advised James to bring his rock skis. Good thing too! We did get a few good linked turns in, but there were a lot of rocks mixed in as well. Now, the bottom of our line ended in a 100' WI5 ice fall, and the bottoms turns, though not steep, were with some consequence. Instead of messing with the steep ice, we skirted out left and did an arm wrap/side slip and a final rappel over the last ice fall. Coiling the ropes in increasing darkness I was able to get full cell reception and call our significant others to let then know we were off the route, OK and running a little late.

Another epic day in the mountains... Thanks James!

Red is our line of ascent, green is our ski and blue is the arm wrap and rappel.

Leaving the snowmobile and beginning the ski approach.

A few helmet cam pics of the route.

Nice work James!

Here's a short video from last weekend...