Alyeska reported over 2′ on the 27th, so I pounded laps until my legs couldn’t take it anymore. The snow quality was incredible, but if you’re looking for things to jump off of at Alyeska, this might not be the season- they’re buried this year. Of course, the snowpack is also pretty amazing, so we went on a nice tour just 24 hours later, with moderate trending towards low conditions. Coastal snowpacks can be pretty amazing.
I found myself in the same vicinity as my first tour up here, this time with new friend Dana and a buddy of his. And once again we found ourselves skinning in the clouds.
Once again, we ended up above it all, and began a short bootpack up a ridge.
Time for a departure in titles from our recent straightforward title names. Spectres? Ping Pong balls? TT43, what is that code for? I’ve gone off my rocker, haven’t I? Read on…
Skiing in places like Alaska is quite the opposite of Colorado in terms of the weather you’re seeking. Here, it’s all about the high pressure letting you get out onto the big lines with blue skies and stable snow. All week long, Friday looked like it would be “The Day”. 0% chance of snow- sunny. Code Blue as they say in Canada. We’d spent enough time on Turnagain to have a few ideas for a big clear day, but in the end our “local consultant” and this Youtube video had us setting our sights on the tallest peak in the Turnagain area, TT43.
We woke up to snowy skies and a forecast which had changed overnight to a 60% chance of snow, but with afternoon clearing. While this would be cause for much celebration back in CO, we were dismayed at the new forecast but still hopeful that the sun would be shining by the time we completed the 4,000′+ climb of TT43. So up we went.
Then it got worse…
We kept climbing through the heavy clouds, hoping that the forecast was right and we would have a perfect afternoon. And indeed, the skies began to lighten as we neared the summit.
You might notice that “day 4″ has been skipped. That’s because it was a really good day and we’ve got a number of photos to go through. So, I’ll skip to day 5. Brittany woke up and decided she needed a day off- it’s hard to keep doing 4-5,000′ days when we’ve had such a lackluster winter in CO and it’s tough to eke out a 2,000′ day. JP, a former resident of Crested Butte, offered to take me on yet another tour on Turnagain. Despite leaving Girdwood under the seemingly omnipresent cloudy and snowy skies, we found a good window to bang out a nice sunny lap before JP had to get to Anchorage.
After a great day skiing powder up here in Alaska, it was with great sadness that I learned my friend Jim Jack passed away in an avalanche outside Steven’s Pass, WA, along with two others. This ESPN article has the best info right now. I first met Jim Jack over 10 years ago at the Kirkwood comp. Jim Jack’s smooth style impressed me almost as much as his smiling demeanor. The guy truly loved to ski. One of my most memorable days of the last 10 years was a day with pretty average conditions at Red Mountain. It was the afternoon after that comp, and a handful of us just started ripping around on the terrain accessed from the Red lift. After the stress of a competition, there was something innately carefree and enjoyable about those runs- in no small part due to Jim Jack. I’ll miss you buddy.
Yesterday, I pulled some double duty with a tour up the Red Lady Glades followed by some uber-deep snowmobiling up Kebler Pass in the afternoon. With 20-40″ of new snow in the past few days in the Crested butte backcountry, the Red Lady Glades seemed like a good, safe choice since the angle can be kept below 30 degrees or so the whole way down. It’s far from my favorite run in the area, and I felt quite a bit of jealousy for those who chose to ski steeper backcountry runs on the same day. No doubt about it, I’ve been feeling like a giant wuss this season- but unfortunately the CO snowpack seems to be giving daily reminders that playing it conservative is a good strategy this season.
I didn’t even bother taking any photos on the descent- but it was a beautiful day to gaze upon Crested Butte:
Thankfully, snowmobiling flat meadows is a whole lot more fun than skiing them, so we headed out, got stuck a bunch, and had an absolute blast doing it. It was deep:
Just a beautiful afternoon in CO:
We know it sounds like a broken record, but stay safe out there friends.
After a good day in the backcountry last week, I headed back to the same zone with Tom Runcie last Friday, and again on Saturday with Sydney Dickinson and Brittany. Without a doubt, conditions were as good as they’ve been this season, although avalanche concerns remain very high, as they will throughout this season. We had about a foot of fresh today in Crested Butte, and double that in the backcountry, so I doubt I’ll be visiting the backcountry again before setting off to Alaska on Saturday. Our thoughts go out to the friends and family of Colorado’s fifth avalanche fatality of the season, today outside of Telluride. Stay safe everyone!
As almost everyone in places like Colorado and Utah knows this season, it just isn’t the year to get after it in the backcountry. With all the stories of tiny but deadly avalanches and giant slides that were triggered from hundreds of feet away, I simply made the decision to stop skiing in the backcountry for most of the past month. It simply isn’t fun for me to ski low angled pitches and still find it somewhat terrifying thanks to some of the worst avalanche conditions in decades. But after hearing less and less reports of slides in the backcountry and more and more reports of decent skiing, it was finally time to go for a walk and check things out. Things are certainly better, but it’s still hard to imagine skiing any big features until late spring– and even that might not happen this snow-starved year. On to some photos…
When it comes to airbags, the only logical reason I had to hold off on a purchase was to wait and let some other manufacturers enter the airbag market. After all, more competition leads to lower prices and more innovation, or so I’m told to believe as any good American consumer. That’s why our health insurance premiums in the USA are so low, thanks to competition between health insurance companies. Ouch, bad example.
A year ago, several big-time pack manufacturers weren’t in the airbag game- names like Osprey, Black Diamond (BD), Dakine, The North Face (TNF), and more. While BD sorts out what they want to do with their avalung technology, and who knows what Osprey is doing, Dakine and TNF unveiled their airbag packs this year. First, Dakine:
Altitude 40l:
Altitude 25l:
As a fan of Dakine packs like the Heli Pro and the Poacher, I was tremendously excited to see what Dakine would come up with. Dakine decided to contract with ABS, and the ABS system is more or less zipped onto the Dakine pack. On the one hand, this allowed Dakine to use ABS’ many years of experience in this field to produce their own airbag pack, but on the other hand Dakine didn’t exactly come up with anything new or exciting as far as airbags go. Using an existing system won’t do a whole lot to reduce the price or weight of an airbag pack, and those two things remain as the biggest detriments to potential airbag buyers.
This winter in (most) of the Western USA got you down? Here’s a couple of solutions.
First, pick up a pair of these skis. AT $199, plus a free ski bag, plus free shipping, plus no tax in most states, how can you not?
Then, basking in the glow of your purchase, check out “The Ordianary Skier”. I really enjoyed watching Seth Morrison getting his ski mountaineer on in Chamonix. Great Flick- free right now on hulu. Enjoy:
The Marker Duke and Baron bindings have proven to be very popular over the last few years, so it certainly shouldn’t be a surprise that some of the other big players on the downhill binding market are now providing some competition. This class of binding deserves its own name- perhaps “Downhill Touring” (DT) or “Freeride Touring” (FT). Another player in this category is the MFD Alltime, a hinged plate that you can attach almost any standard alpine binding. Yes, they tour to an extent, but not like a Dynafit/tech binding or even a Fritchi. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like the category.
First, some thoughts on my Dukes. I actually like them a lot. Unlike my Fritchis or Dynafits, I can ski them inbounds with 100% confidence. Additionally, unlike my Dynafits I can quickly change from my alpine boots to my AT boots. When I’m unsure if I’ll be touring or skiing inbounds, I can limit myself to the Dukes without compromising too much touring or aggressive skiing inbounds. But any tour more than a couple of hours is just plain brutal.
They’re also very useful for the lazy man’s versions of backcountry skiing- namely slackcountry and sled laps. This is a topic that is rarely discussed, but should honestly be on your mind when you do tours of this type. Let’s say you’re in Jackson Hole and you head out the Rock Springs gate and hike up the pre-existing boot pack. You ski first and then watch your partner get caught in a slide above you. If you’re in standard alpine bindings and you have no skins, you’ve basically signed your partners death certificate- you’ll spend an hour postholing up to the debris just to break out your beacon/probe/shovel to find a corpse. So please, if you find yourself skiing slackcountry make sure you have some sort of backup plan (a touring binding of some sort plus skins) to reach your partners.
Enough of that, let’s get to the Tyrolia/Head offering, the Adrenalin, complete with a high DIn setting of 16.
Tyrolia’s offering seeks to differentiate itself through a “floating” heelpiece. All the cool new ski designs are rendered somewhat moot if a DT binding, with its huge rigid zone, doesn’t allow the ski to flex the way its designers intended. So the Tyrolia binding doesn’t fix the heel of the binding in place- instead it has 2 small cylindrical tabs mate up with two similar tabs on the fixed part of the heel to lock it down while still allowing movement. Even a quick hand flex of a ski will show the system works. The system is visible on the brushed metal fixed part of the binding and the “rail” of the binding above it. Also, unlike the Duke, you don’t have to step out to go from ski-hike-ski modes. The question we’d like to see answered in real-life usage is whether or not the system ices up during the skin, making it difficult to get into ski mode (the duke requires careful cleaning of its track to lock it down).
Does it work in practice? We won’t know unless we get a chance to try the binding out on the snow. Another feature of the binding is that you can adjust the binding length without tools- but really, how hard is it to use a leatherman, even out on the trail? Then there’s this:
Yes, that’s plastic connecting the toe and heel. Not a single bit of metal in there. Now, I had the original white Fritchi Titanal binding, and I broke the metal connecting rod on that binding in relatively short order. The next Fritchi, the blue Titanal 2, had a much stronger and heavier connecting bar that I never did break. I can only hope that Tyrolia did their homework- if that plastic breaks on a skier somewhere exposed, it’s going to be a nasty accident. I’m not sure I trust it, that’s all I can say, but time will tell with this binding. Reported (unverified) weight is 40g more than the Duke, and well over 100g lighter than the Salomon.
Speaking of which, on to the Salomon Guardian.
Like the Tyrolia, the Guardian lets you switch modes without stepping out. This is something that drives me crazy about not only my Dukes, but also my Dynafits. Hit the flats at the end of the run- boom, go to tour mode. It gets steeper again- boom, go to ski mode. This feature alone gets me excited about this binding. The “teeth” that lock the binding down in ski mode look less prone to ice and snow buildup as well. Also like the Tyrolia, this binding isn’t entirely “fixed”, allowing the ski to flex naturally. It’s interesting to note that both bindings addressed both of these Duke downfalls. Still, I’ll take a wait and see approach with this binding given Salomon’s other ill-fated forays into the touring world.
More on the Tyrolia:
More (a lot more, at almost a half hour) on the Salomon:
Maybe “mature powder”...
