3-31-2011 N summit of Timp

Been looking at this line for a while(years) and I'm not sure why we haven't skied it.  A predawn start with Andy and Sam had us all pretty psyched! We packed up and walked out my parents front door.

Parents house

Walked on dirt for an hour or so and then put a pretty little skinner up our chute.

We were greeted with some gnarly cornices when we hit the ridge. Sam wanted to play on them but we convinced him not to.

Stay away.

Toward the top (photo by artistic Andy)

Fun wind/sun effected snow the whole way down.

Sam towards the top

Another by artistic Andy

Sam

Andy

Back to the dirt and 65 degree weather, quite the contrast from the windy cold we found up high.  Gotta love tights and t-shirt weather!

Happy Chinos

The line goes down the middle of the peak seen below, nice. Click on the pic and then zoom to get a better view of it.  Do it.

View from 635 Dalton

3-29-2011 Apollo -Snowbird-Apollo (burger)

Not as much skiing lately.  Too much study time.  Since I had my big test on the 30th I figured today would be a good day to skip the studies.  Andy and I were a little spooked with recent avalanche events so we  decided to stay a little lower, Olympus! The day started with a hip-hop dance party at the trailhead, funny.  The following bushwhack wasn't as funny but the Apollo did not disappoint.

Andy at the branch point

A little higher, great light all day

We thought about skiing what we started calling the "Zeus Face" but decided it wasn't a smart choice.   Next time.

Zeus

The top of the Apollo had about a foot of hard wind slab.  A few ski cuts took care of it.

Productive ski cuts

The snow from top to bottom was pretty ridiculous. Deep, soft, stable (according to our pits).  

Crappy pic but it's Andy practicing "airing" in skinny ski and tights. 

Downtown Nate Brown was in from Jackson for a few hours and wanted to get a little exercise.  He didn't have an avy beeper with him so we hit a quick skin up snowbird.

They aren't even posing.  This is just what these goons usually look like.

It was a little out of the way for me but after talking about it all day we had to come full circle and eat a fat Apollo.

3-25-2011 Tyler Time

3-23-2011 Andy and I walked from our parent's house towards Timp, made it pretty high but turned around in a white out. No pics, just clouds.

3-25-2011 Got to ski with Andy, Shaneen and Tyler, fun day.  Booting up the Y we were hit in the face with a pretty big natural sluff.  A little scary so we turned around and headed to Holy Moly.  Everything skied great.

Dr. Doctor

Tyler in the Y

What's with the skis?

3-18-2011 Hulk Hogum? Hogum Magnifique?

We've been talking about this tour for a little while.  See Andy for more.  Last attempt ended with a broken binding on top of the Pfeif.  6:00AM start put us on the ridge above Maybird as the sun came up.  

Andy, Jared on the ridge.

We were expecting warm weather.   Not sure what the temp was but wind made it COLD!

Not sure if this shows how windy it really was

#1-NW couloir off the Pfeifferhorn.  Little icy but it skied pretty well.

On the way out

Andy and I hadn't thought much about Snapdragon but Jared was psyched so we followed him.  Turns out we didn't have any idea where it was.  We ended up taking the line in the left of following pic.

Line #2 for the day

On the way up

Full of wind drifted powder, pretty fun

On the way down

Next up, #3-Montgomery. To enter, our options were a sketchy down-climb or a rap.

We chose to rap

Stayed on rappel over the sugar covered rocks in the top of the chute.

Jared

Jared above the cliff

The skiing was great.  We couldn't find the anchor before the cliff so we left more stuff, oh well.

Andy up top

Anchor

Jared abseilling

Exiting Montgomery

From there #4-The Sliver waited.

Andy skiing, Jared lower, both in the Sliver

Next #5-Dresden Face. We weren't sure if we had time.  Glad Jared was psyched once again.

Good skiing

#6-The Needle skied pretty bad.  Mostly icy with patches of soft.

Andy found some soft

Back up to the top of the Coalpit headwall.

Glad to be done with most of the up, Pfeif in the background.

#7-Coalpit, best skiing of the day.

Jared and Andy towards our entry

Lower on the headwall

#8-The Y was a short traverse away.  The top was great.  The bottom, full of debris.

8 lines, almost 14 hours, almost 12,000 feet later we were back at the car.

Happy to be done, hungery

3-17-2011 Kessler-East Couloir, Match Day!

My alarm was set for 4:50 AM.  I woke up at 4:45 thinking that I matched at Denver-pretty sure I forgot to rank them.  Luckily I was just dreaming.

CJ, Matt and I headed up Argenta in the dark with no real plans.  Once we got to the top of the East it was hard to say no.  We pulled to cord out and cut off a fridge sized cornice and jumped in after.  Both Matt and I had cameras and phones.  Both cameras were out of batteries. Both phones were too.  10 new inches were ridiculous.  I managed to get a crappy shot of lap #2.

Group Ski!!

As soon as I got down, I got a handful of texts from Indiana friends.  The first one I got, "UTAH!!!" I guess I get to stay!

3/12-14/2011 Powder Keg, CS, CA

Powder Keg on Sat.  Turns out competing is pretty fun.  I had to rally up the last climb to put a gap on the guy I raced with all day, didn't want to get passed on the down right before the finish. Ha, it worked!  No pics.

Flew to LA in Sun to take CS on Monday, pretty boring.

I got to run with Warren after the test. What a treat!  Southern California's no Utah, but a run on the beach was a nice contrast.  Too bad I didn't get the pictures of garbage castles and condoms on the beach from Warren.

One of the dirtiest beaches ever.

3-11-2011 Pfeifferhorn NW Couloir

Decided to head back up to the NW couloir with Z. Foy to see if it had filled in any more.  Thought it would be cool to ski w/o a rap.  

Zak pulling rock moves on the approach

As usual, the approach was pretty nice.  Blue, calm skies always helps.

Foy

Top was a little icy, Zak didn't mind though.

Above the rap

Our hopes of airing the rap were quickly aborted.  Looked way too scary.

Glad for a rope today

Exiting

Another good day on the Pfeif!

3-10-2011 Pfeifferhorn North Ridge, North East Couloir, North Couloir

The plan was to climb the North Ridge of the Pfeif and then ski either out one of the north facing shots or head south to Box Elder.  When in doubt, head north, right?

The Pfeifferhorn

The climb was easy but pretty fun.  For some reason Andy and I were both loving easy rock moves with ski boots and crampons on.

Starting towards the ridge via the N couloir

Andy starts the roped climbing

Andy still on pitch #1

Following pitch #1

My turn, pitch #2

We had to climb through part of the NE face on the way up. It looked pretty fun so we decided to give it a go.  Not sure where the proper line was, we did a little bit of exploring (getting lost).  Andy and I both took a turn looking for a "piton" anchor.  Never found it.

Climbing back up

Found a place to belay although no pitons were found

We were scared of a little wind slab so we skied belayed above the rap.

Andy setting up the rappel

One rap and we were down

Andy out the lower apron

After the NE we were so close to the North Couloir (which we put a booter in earlier that day) we just couldn't say no.

All in all, it was a great day.

N. couloir, tracks!