{"id":414,"date":"2009-04-11T16:41:06","date_gmt":"2009-04-11T22:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.14erskiers.com\/blog\/?p=414"},"modified":"2009-04-11T16:41:06","modified_gmt":"2009-04-11T22:41:06","slug":"the-s-tube-4809","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/the-s-tube-4809\/","title":{"rendered":"The S-Tube  4.8.09"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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&#8217;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.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/s244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/?action=view&#038;current=SchuykillSTube4-8-09001.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/SchuykillSTube4-8-09001.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Luke skinning the ridge:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/s244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/?action=view&#038;current=SchuykillSTube4-8-09005.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/SchuykillSTube4-8-09005.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I skied first, and since I hadn&#8217;t yet skied the classic &#8220;S-Tube&#8221;, 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:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/s244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/?action=view&#038;current=SchuykillSTube4-8-09006.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/SchuykillSTube4-8-09006.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;s always interesting to watch moving snow, even when they are &#8220;just&#8221; sloughs, just to see how fast and powerful moving snow can be.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/s244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/?action=view&#038;current=SchuykillSTube4-8-09007.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/SchuykillSTube4-8-09007.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/s244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/?action=view&#038;current=SchuykillSTube4-8-09008.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/SchuykillSTube4-8-09008.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/s244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/?action=view&#038;current=SchuykillSTube4-8-09011.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/SchuykillSTube4-8-09011.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;s left of the S-tube.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/s244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/?action=view&#038;current=SchuykillSTube4-8-09025.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/SchuykillSTube4-8-09025.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/s244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/?action=view&#038;current=SchuykillSTube4-8-09047.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/SchuykillSTube4-8-09047.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/s244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/?action=view&#038;current=SchuykillSTube4-8-09051.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/SchuykillSTube4-8-09051.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Luke went even farther looker&#8217;s left, and was obscured by trees so I didn&#8217;t get too many photos of him until he made his exit:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/s244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/?action=view&#038;current=SchuykillSTube4-8-09058.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/Schuykill%20S%20Tube%204-8-09\/SchuykillSTube4-8-09058.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s snowing again, so once this snow sets up and gets stable again, I&#8217;ll be heading back this way soon.  Meanwhile, tomorrow I&#8217;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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last Wednesday, Luke, Ben and I headed out the Slate river valley to see if the higher Northern aspects were<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-backcountry-skiing","category-crested-butte","category-respect-the-snow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions\/415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}