Yet another transferred old TR…
Partners: Joe Brannen, Andy dimmen, Jordan White
We all had the early morning Mother’s day hall pass, so we headed to the Pikes Peak road at nine and drove to the top, to ski our line and then climb back out of it. Pike’s is tough in that way, since an earlier start would be preferable, but you have to wait for the road to open. Thankfully, the Y and Railroad couloirs face North, making the late start feasible.
‘Y’:
Jordan:
Joe:
Frank: (The snow was really tough (frozen chickenheads), I guess that’s why I’m jumping so high to get away from it)
Andy:
Andy chose to downclimb this section. Normally, any of us would have billygoated through it, but with the tough conditions we all did what we had to do.
Meanwhile, the rest of us tried to find another way, and found a narrow slot that also would have been fine with better snow, but not this day. I was about to tell Jordan about the joys of tailstabbing, but he figured out the technique on his own. It works great- just stab your tails into the snow and walk down the slope.
Look ma, no hands 
Joe:
We skied until the slope started to get less steep near treeline and then switched to crampons and ice axes for the climb back up. Pike’s is certainly unique since the easiest way of doing it is to ski first and climb later. We made short work of the rapidly thawing snow climb and topped out with enough time to drink a quick summit beer and still make it back in time for mother’s day festivities.
