More Skiing

Wednesday brought beautify weather which stuck around for Thursday and with nothing better to do, I went skiing. A posse of us went out Wednesday and tracked up the mountain. The turns were so good and conditions so stable that I had to head back the next day for seconds.

It was nice to group up the first day, but there is something special about being in the mountains all alone. Its quite intimidating, but the silence and scenery are breath taking. The first turn is a lot like a trust fall...

Bob skinning up the ridge

The South bowl once we finished with it

The group on the summit

Karl cresting the summit

Backcountry Bliss

Last Saturday marked the beginning of a 5 day backcountry ski fest. I went into the Bitterroot mountains South of town to ski couloirs, then traveled to the Swan mountains and hour East of town to yurt ski.

The couloirs were awesome. Two different lines, both about 2,000ft long. One with wild exposure and the other, a tight avalanche chute.

Couloir #1
Boot'n up the line

Brian

Ben

Ben skinning up couloir #2

Ben and I at the bottom

Sunday night I got home, unpacked, tried gear, and repacked. My roommate Erin and four of our friends head out for a few days of yurt skiing. The terrain was short, but excellent and the yurt was an amazing place to heads back to every night. We had great turns, amazing food, and wonderful company.

Erin

Erin ripping it

Chris

Charging it

Nate

Martin and Travis

Martin

Travis dropping in

The yurt

Chris skinning the ridge line

On top of Morel Mountain

The crew

Self pic

More From Santa Barbara

Little Rincon

Sunrise at Little Rincon

Brad and Elizabeth

Pre-work session

Brad

Wine enthusiast's heaven

Solveng

Avila Beach pier

Avila Beach

Searching for bait

Sea cliffs at Avila Beach

Santa Barbara

A few pics of Cali until I have time to post more.

Pidas Beach

Elizabeth

Brad

The Backcountry is Ready

Spent the last few days at Lolo Pass back country skiing. The recent warm temps allowed the snow pack to settle forming a nice base to hide logs and stumps. Today was so good might just have to go back tomorrow for some more...

Bob

Bob

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Peter

Skunked on Christmas Eve

Patrick and I loaded up his snowmobile and headed for St. Mary peak in the Bitterroot mountains south of town, for what we hoped would be a nice day of skiing. The parking lot is around 7,000ft and the summit around 9,000ft, so we figured on finding plenty of snow. Unfortunately there is only about two feet in the mountains now.

We spent about three hours skinning up to a nice access point into the north bowl. The terrain was steep and loaded so conditions were horrible at best...

Needless to say we followed our tracks back to the snowmobile.

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The lake where the avalanche stopped

The trees up there have been tortured by the wind making for some nice pics.

Mission Mountains

Sunday, the planets must have aligned or something, cause Shapiro and I had a day off together. Temps were forecaste to be moderate (12f) so we planned to climb at Mission Falls. As were drove there, bank signs read -4f so I began to question the forecast. Some down-fall prevented us from reaching the parking lot so our 2 mile approach was annoyingly extended. Temps remained cold and neither Jeff or I could keep our toes and fingers warm. Despite the misery, we kept laughing as we slogged up the horrible trail.

When we got our first glimpse of the ice, we were amazed that there wasn't more. Not that there wasn't a lot, we just thought that with the recent below zero temps there would be more. No worried though, there was plenty to climb.

Still cold, we decided to boulder around and check stuff out to warm up. After quite some time we realized it was just too cold to properly warm up. We were both "over it" and the idea of sitting at the bar next to a fire enjoying some food and drinks was much more appealing. We had slogged all the way out there so with our last bits of motivation decided to climb. Basically so we could say we did.

The plan was to climb as quick as possible so we could begin our progress towards the bar. The cold brittle ice shut me down though. Screws were tough to place and tool placements had to be thoughtfully chosen. The occasional shotgun sounding crack of the ice as it accepted my place on it, mentally slowed my progress. Eventually I made it up and quickly put Jeff on belay. After an intimate visit with the "screamy barfys" Jeff topped out and we were on our way.