We’ll get back to our TR’s from our big road trip soon, but for today, here’s a TR from yesterday’s long local adventure. Things are really shaping up here, with a fairly deep and stable snowpack starting to allow some bigger descents. We headed up the Red Lady hike but instead of dropping in there, we headed out for a nice ridgewalk towards Irwin:

Pete had been in the area a few days ago and suggested we ski a face off of Scarp’s Ridge. I knew the face he was talking about from other trips to the area, and it had always looked like a good one so that’s what we were aiming for. It was pretty steep and it rolled over, so it was hard to tell if we were in the right spot or not, but we gave it a go regardless. I dropped in first:

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After our epic and incredibly deep day the day before, we headed back out to a slightly different zone on Sunday to find some more powder. While the snow had set up considerably overnight, it was still a great day. On the way up, I had a bit of a lead on the others, so I just had to hit this little pillow zone:

It was fun but short, and we went up to the top where things looked very good indeed:

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Days as deep as this one are hard to come by. They might come once or twice a year in Colorado, and only in a few select spots. Utah might get as many as half a dozen days like this in a good year, and the heavy snows of Tahoe may never get like this, with the high water content and winds that are typical of that area. It takes a rare combination of no wind, light snow, no settling, and especially it takes A LOT of snow. Brittany and I were joined by Chris Webster and Pam Rice from Boulder, usual suspects Tom Runcie, Rob Dickinson, and Sydney Fuller, plus Tom’s friend Jeff, also from Boulder. Thankfully there was plenty to go around…

Photo Webster:

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After a fantastic day at the resort and a delicious dinner (see Part I), we headed out for some backcountry skiing the following day. I took these ladies to meet another lady- the Red Lady- Queen of Mt. Emmons. I chose to take these ladies to ski the Red Lady glades, as they were low angle, low avy-danger terrain suitable for our varied group. Some of our ladies were “seasoned” in the backcountry, for others, it was their first tour!

The ladies lined up for backcountry fun!

Ann brought her Ullr helmet for a visit, and I was honored to wear it. Ullr is the god of snow. The female equivalent of Ullr is Skade (also called Skadi), the goddess of skiing. She married Njord, who wanted to live by the sea. So, they divided their time evenly between the mountains and the sea. (Huntford, p. 28) I was Skade for the day

The girls kicking butt up the hill.

Ann on the skin track

Photo courtesy of Fast Froggy

Photo courtesy of Fast Froggy

With snow continuing to fall, and with thoughts of long drives ahead, many of the girls opted to turn around about 1/3 of the way up the mountain.

Lauren and Julianne getting ready to ski.

Amber and Andi.

Corien and Carol.

Ashleigh and Corien watching Carol lead the way through the glades.

Amber with a trail of pixi dust behind her!

Lauren skiing.

Photo courtesy of Julianne.

Carol skiing.

Photo courtesy of Fast Froggy

Only Sonya, Ann, and I were left, making our way to the top of the Red Lady.

Sonya, Ann, and I on the top of Mt. Emmons.

During her first backcountry outing, Sonya climbed and skied 3000 vert. Pretty kick ass for her first time out!

Skiing was creamy and good!

Ann

Sonya

Me. (Photos courtesy of Ann Driggers)

It was fun being Skade, even if for only a day Thanks ladies!!!!!

References

Huntford, Roland. Two Planks and a Passion: The Dramatic History of Skiing. Continuum. New York. 2008.

If I say today was another great day of skiing, it might seem like a broken record. But at least the record just keeps playing my favorite songs over and over again…

Today, I went out with Zach Berman, Rob Dickinson, and Tom Runcie to ski in the upper Slate River area. With another couple of inches overnight, conditions could best be described as “supportable blower”. On our first lap, we stayed in some thicker trees, making it hard to get many quality photos. Here’s one of Rob, however:

We decided to head to another area for our second lap, and Zach had some trouble with his skins. He made it up with a little help from his friends, though:

The terrain above us looked enticing, but se decided to save it for another snowpack, not the one we have now, that’s for sure.

Zach dropped in first off a small cliffband:

Rob followed:

Tom:

Rob finished things up with his ‘O’ face, perfectly describing the whole day:

OK, maybe not the greatest movie ever, but for a Colorado kid it’s tough to beat a movie about Colorado kids kickin’ some butt. I just had to mention that, since “Wolverines!” kept going through my head as we headed up Emmons yesterday.

Originally Brittany and I were going to ski Redwell, but after hearing that conditions in Wolverine were good, we opted to check it out instead. Wolverine is Emmon’s steepest bowl, and a line I’ve only skied once or twice in the past. Red Lady was getting its’ usual hammering, surprisingly still powder despite the hot temps of late. At one point, we watched three people skiing the bowl at once, always interesting even if there are a bunch of tracks there already. Meanwhile, not a single track went to the looker’s right side of the bowl, which was also “interesting.”

Things are looking considerably better than they did a couple of weeks ago when I skied the South face of Schuykill

We made a couple of turns to check out the top of Wolverine. Brittany:

The view from the top was far from disappointing…

And the turns weren’t disappointing either…

Brittany, looking more and more comfortable on steep, sloughy terrain:

Our line was just a hair looker’s left of the summit…

After the steep upper bowl, we still had 2,000′ or so of good meadow skipping below us. The warm days and cold nights have once again created a ton of surface hoar, which made for great skiing on our way out, but will soon be yet another layer in this season’s poor snowpack. Frank:

A much better shot of Wolverine from a couple of days later..

Brittany’s camera batteries died, so we didn’t get a ton of photos, but there it is, the day of the year (so far).