The S-Tube 4.8.09
(Last Updated On: April 11, 2009)
Last Wednesday, Luke, Ben and I headed out the Slate river valley to see if the higher Northern aspects were still holding good powder. Despite the gruesome appearance of the red-brown dust that was already melting out like crazy from last week’s duststorm, the northern aspects we skied did reward us with near perfect conditions. First, another shot of the nasty dust layer coming out on Cascade.
Luke skinning the ridge:
I skied first, and since I hadn’t yet skied the classic “S-Tube”, I chose that line. As it turns out, this may very well be one of my favorite lines, as it flows like very few lines do, allowing for high-speed GS turns in an aesthetic couloir. The bottom 3 turns were unbelievably fun:
Luke made a couple of turns off the top to get in a better position to watch Ben and sent a huge slough down the S tube that I took a few photos of. It’s always interesting to watch moving snow, even when they are “just” sloughs, just to see how fast and powerful moving snow can be.
Ben dropped into his line next, which was somewhat of an exploratory run, since he wanted to find a fast and clean exit off of a hanging snowfield to the looker’s left of the S-tube.
Luke went even farther looker’s left, and was obscured by trees so I didn’t get too many photos of him until he made his exit:
It’s snowing again, so once this snow sets up and gets stable again, I’ll be heading back this way soon. Meanwhile, tomorrow I’ll be going on my first snowcat skiing trip to Monarch. As long as they get some snow, we should get some great skiing there.
Frank Konsella
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