Terminal Cancer Couloir

After watching the weather for the last two weeks, I decided that yesterday would be the best opportunity to go down to the Ruby mountains and ski the TC couloir.  I have never been in the Rubies.  There seems to be a lot of motorized recreation.  In fact, we were the only backcountry skiers NOT using a helicopter.

Here is the trailhead.  There are so many coolies to explore here that if I lived here, my car would be here a lot!

The approach to this classic line is less than 15 minutes from the car.  It's on the buttress to the lookers right.

The depth of the snow made for a brutal booter, but awesome descent.

The view from the road is deceptive.  The line appears very steep, but is not more than 35 degrees and is very consistent.  I was pleased.  The other funny expectation I had was that it was going to end in a dramatic saddle, kinda like most Sawtooth coolies.  You get to the top and there is another MUCH larger mountain RIGHT behind it.

Bob wanted me to take a picture of him crossing the creek.  Most people don't want a camera around when crossing a water feature in ski boots.  I obliged, but he never fell in as per our agreement.

We did it as a day-trip.  It made for a long day, but I think it was worth it to ski the line in good condition.  I highly recommend it.  I will even go down there with you...  if you drive.

More Bull Trout Point

The conditions allowed us to ski some of the North side of Bull Trout on Saturday.  Excellent snow.

Bull Trout Point

Greg and I had planned on climbing an ice flow that I noticed was in 10 days ago.  The only problem is that it was warm AND had rained since then.  The icicle had fallen and the beautiful blue ice below was now foamy white.  So much for ice climbing.  Luckily, we were going to have to skin back into the ice, so we had all of our touring gear.  We decided that since we were only 20 minutes from Copper that we may as well go skiing.

Once at the pull-out I told Greg that maybe instead of going to cliche' Copper, we should go to the Bull Trout Point ridge.  He didn't take too much convincing!

The skin in is easy once past the thicker trees on the lower slope.  The snow just got better and better the higher we got.  We didn't go all the way to the true summit.  We stopped at the first false summit and skied the face you can see from the road.

We skinned back up and skied the ridge to the bottom.  The snow on the lower ridge turned to corn.  It was almost a surprise to have such great snow conditions.

We cut through the trees and were on flat ground.  Somebody had pulled a BIG sled down Bull Trout road with snowshoes.  What a cool place to spend a few days in the winter.  Lucky people.  

Happy Birthday Greg!  Hope you had a good one!

Ice.

From yesterday.  Splitter day.  I love Idaho.

The Warrior's Way Falling Clinic

Copper 1/2/11

Another great day up on Copper.  The snow up there has been great so far this season.  I skied with Chris, John, John, and Dylan.  Everyone had a great time.  We were thinking about skiing the shoulder chute so we dropped a cornice into it using my cornice cutter tool with Chris giving me a belay.  It was about a 500 pounder and the slope didn't move.  The cornice broke up and ran down to the bottom.

We skied the face on the way back down to John and crew.  Wind blown, ice and then some nice snow. The lower shoulder was very nice on the way out.  

I would write more, but I am two glasses into a bottle of Sageland Cabernet Sauvignon and I just took a melatonin.  I hope everyone got out and had a great weekend!

Xmas Eve Dawn Patrol

Splattski and I have a tradition of skiing on Christmas Eve.  We usually try to get out early and be back in town before the liquor store closes.  I love to dawn patrol and be back before noon.  Today we skied Freeman and had reasonably good snow conditions.  Good enough to take two laps on the lower half!

The moon was out, but not enough to see without a headlamp.  It was cold as we geared up to start skinning up.



After about 45 minutes the sun came up and revealed a wee bit of alpenglow.  John is surveying the potential lines on the way down.



This picture could be from last year's Xmas Eve trip!  I guess it IS better to be lucky than good!



Turns in the shade and trees were great.  Boot-grabby zipper crust was present elsewhere.  It's supposed to be warmer, so we'll see what happens to the conditions.



Here's to another great year!  I hope the 1.3 people that read my ramblings have a great Christmas!