2019 Furlough ski diaries

An accounting of skiing goings on during the furlough.  Although I would have preferred to work, I skied every day I was in Montana, and ended up touring over 80,000 vertical feet.  Conditions were consistently excellent.  Coverage is good, but persistently high and tricky avalanche danger kept me from doing Bitterroot peak to creeks as much as I would have preferred.  I threw structured training out the window, just puttering along at a happy moderate pace for weeks on end.  Good aerobic base building, and it was nice to ski every day and not dig into a fatigue hole.

1/27 Marshall 1.5k

Sam skiing Marshall mountain.

Skinned to the top with Sam.  We took his skis, and he skied to the base from below the upper pitch with the harness.  It took longer to go down than up, but we both had an absolute blast.

1/26 Snowbowl rope tow 0k
Felt good to take a day off from exercise.  Nice morning.

1/25 Mill point, Southeast bowl 8.5k

Steep glade skiing on the first run in the Southeast bowl of Mill point.

The fun middle gully at the bottom of the Southeast bowl of Mill point.
The run continues down and around the corner.

Tour was up Mill point, two runs in the Southeast bowl, back to summit and out.  The Mill Southeast bowl is a great run.  See seperate post.   7 hours

1/24 Blue Point and Marshall + Rando Radness spectating 4.5k
After day care drop off, I headed up Marshall with hopes of repeating local guru Paul's tour on Blue point from the previous day.  I ran into Tim on top, and he tagged along for the remainder of the tour.  We continued out to Blue point, turning around below the high point.  We skied good snow down through the clear cuts behind the resort, and a mid-length climb put us back on the summit for a normal run down.  Finding good conditions is tricky, but I would still like to go back and do more on Blue point.

I skinned about a third of the way up with Sam in backpack and watched the uphill rando radness race in the evening.  3 hours

1/23 Marshall 1.5k
Quick one lap Marshall tour with Leah.  Felt surprisingly recovered from yesterday. Maybe I should have tried harder. Great skiing.

1/22 Big St. Joe, Fast 6k

Skipping my way up Big St. Joe just before the wind kicked in.

I made a speed run on Big St. Joe, using yesterday's skin track.  I am not very fired up to skimo race this year, but I am excited to try for some fast times on some of the local peaks and tours.  To my surprise, it was extremely windy up high, but otherwise it was a great outing, and I went fast for me.  The first half went really fast with race skis, and having a pre-broken skin track sped things up a ton, but up high I lost at least ten minutes to cold and wind and having to re-break about a thousand vertical of trail.  Fortunately I brought some extra warm clothes, so I was able to slowly grid it out to the summit.  The avalanche danger was Considerable, but it was safe enough with careful routefinding.  I would like to do this again and get my time down.  It is a really nice outing, has great skiing, demands a variety of skills to ski fast, and is pretty safe.  My splits were: First stream 18mins; Bass creek #1: 40; Leave trail 1.05;  Start up the SE face above the funk: 1.20;  Gain summit ridge 2.30;  Summit: 3.0;  Trail outbound 3.20;  Car 3.48.  It would not be easy, but I think 3.30 is possible for me.

1/21  Lower Big St. Joe 5.5k

Justin skiing excellent powder on Big St. Joe.

I was able to get out with Leah and Justin Angle.  It had snowed another few inches overnight, so the skin in was snowy and beautiful.  I tried approaching the lower Southeast bowl a little farther climber's right, which proved unsatisfactory, so we retreated and went up my new normal way about a hundred yards east of the drainage.  We skinned up the low angle Southeast bowl until it started to steepen, then took a run and a half on great boot top powder.  Thanks to Justin and Leah for the fun day out. 6 hours.

1/20 Lappi Lake 7k

Lappi powder skiing.

Long half day tour, starting by headlamp and returning by early afternoon.  I followed Leah and Ned's track from the previous day and skied a full lap on the main Lappi ski run (upper bowl and ramps down to below the lake).  The skiing was so fun that I took another half lap, then climbed back just far enough to get into the West bowl, which I took out.  The new snow was a little heavy, but it was great skiing.  6 hours.

1/19 Marshall 1.5k
Quick one lap Sam backpack tour.  The snow was soft, and we had fun hitting jumps on the ski down.

1/18 Mill Point,  South gullies. 6.5k

Looking down the Flathead gully.

Great snow at the top of the Kootenai gully.

Another late start.  The tour was: Up Shoshone climbing approach, up and down gully west of there.  Back up to the summit of Mill point, down Kootenai gully, walk out to trail, fly out to car on skis.  Details in separate post. 7 hours.

1/17 Rando Radness 3k
I raced hard.  Worked my way up on the first climb, topping out in the lead.  Jeffrey passed in transitions and crushed me for the rest of the race.  I did the next few laps about a minute ahead of Jesse Carnes and Doug Melzer.  Felt good, especially for not doing any quality workouts in a few weeks since I was either traveling or skiing every day. Did an extra lap afterward.

1/16 Marshall 1k

Car radio install was the main task for the day.
I took longer than I should have, but it was successful!

Leah and I skinned most of Marshall on a gorgeous evening before beelining it to pick Sam up. Brought race skis and practiced transitions. 45 mins

1/15 Missions, Sheepshead, Southwest face 6k
See separate post.  Such a fun day. I had such a great time!  7.5h

1/14 Big St. Joe, South face 7k

Jeffrey heading for the South gullies above the inversion.

We did the big climb to big St. Joe in t-shirt weather and summited in warm, calm conditions a rarity on this behemoth. We skied the center gully, which required some down walking to get to snow.  I had miscalculated, and the snow was too warm.  We survival skied it anyway. It was nice to finally do this one from the summit. Since the skiing was bad, we just did another short run in the lower fan before flying out on the trail.  7 hours

1/13 Marshall 2k
Did the big climb and skied the upper pitch twice with Sam in the back pack.

1/12 Snowbowl rope tow 0k
With Sam and Leah. Nice morning.

1/11 Gash, Sky Pilot attempt 10k

Looking down the chute on my second run and across at Sky Pilot.

2,000 feet of stable corn made me happy.

Retreating back to Gash shortly before sunset.

I didn't leave the car until 10, but still had a great day skiing and scheming ideas for the rest of the dry spell.  My first main run was the eastern chute to Bear lake, and it was very good and safe.  I climbed to Sky Pilot but turned around by mixed pit results at the base of the face.  I skied another short run, then made a high traverse and long exit climb to Gash.  Made it out right at dark. 8 hours

1/10 Bike ride and Randonee radness  0.6k
I ended up just doing a 2.5 hour road bike ride.  Lower Miller creek, Trails End, Miller Creek, South hills.  It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, and it felt great to bike.  I skinned one lap at Randonee radness with Sam to spectate the race

1/9 Snowbowl backcountry ~5.5k
I rallied a reasonably early morning Snowbowl.  Far East, up East Bowl to Point six, Taint, two Totality laps from the last road cut, Jenny Bowl, Lower Paradise.  I dug a quick pit on Totality and had failures at ECT22P at about 50 cm on thin facets on a wind slab.  There was a lot more snow than before we left for Mexico, and the skiing was all pretty good.  4 hours.

1/8  Lolo Pass, Crystal Amphitheater ~4k

Looking back at my second run.

After a late night return from our family Oaxaca vacation, I slept in, ran a few errands, then headed out to explore at Lolo.  I am essentially a Lolo novice, and accordingly parked in the wrong lot and bumbled my way in to the cirque.  There was over a foot of new, light snow, and aside from thin early season coverage, I think that conditions were about as good as they get.  I bumbled around all day, but took two runs off the North shoulder of the cirque, then worked my way to tracks farther in on the finger ridge with the main Crystal crags and had a great run, following tracks.  Every run had great, almost face shot deep powder.  A short climb and tree schwack put me back at the highway with time to spare for day care pick up.  I really liked this zone and want to go back.  4 hours.

Gash point. Mileage day

Up, up and more up.

Motivated but still waiting for a real snowpack, I put in a big-for-me day of powder lap skiing at Gash.  I left the car at 6:15 and headlamped my way in. I just did laps in the main bowl, so the day itself was pretty simple.  I cashed my pack about a third of the way up the skin track, and the routine was to take a lap, transition before I got too cold, then climb to my pack for a snack.  I started by skiing six runs on the east shoulder of the main bowl.  The skiing was really good, and I had a great time exploring all the possible ways to ski the main bowl.  I skied the last five runs in the middle of the main bowl, stopping just below the final headwall due to avalanche danger.  I had hoped to ski a few laps on the West shoulder, but decided to avoid even moderate avalanche exposure after triggering a large collapse at the base of the headwall.  Fortunately, I spent all day on terrain that was not steep enough to slide.

The biggest mistake of the day was using a running pack to hold an extra set of clothes.
I forgot how the straps don't work with skins.  Fortunately there was no one around to heckle.

Great skiing!

 Even with my even and conservative pacing, I got tired, and the last few laps were a bit of a grind.  But soon enough I was on the last climb, topping out just past my 16,000 foot goal.  Even with my moderate weight setup, the day went quickly, and this was the second most elevation I have skied in a day. The exit was a little sparky and brushy, but it was still fast enough to make a 30-minute exit and return to the car just before headlamp time.

Almost out of food on the last climb.  Time to head home.

For stats, a little north of 16k, done in a little under 12 hours at a moderate pace.  10k day number three for the year.  I felt good and efficient all day, if not a little slow.  I also had to eat about 150 calories per hour, which is more than I like.  As a training day, this was a good confidence boost.  I have been training a little differently this fall, and don't think my upper end fitness is very good right now, but I do think my all day fitness is right where it usually is, which is great.