Castle Crag powder laps

Castle Cragging at its finest.

I wrapped up a fabulous weekend of powder skiing by rallying at 5:30 for Castle Crag.  The approach up Mill creek is kind of a mind numbing crusher, but I got it done in just over 3 hours.  Snow coverage right now in Mill is as good as I have ever seen it, and I stopped many times to scope new-to-my-brain North facing ski lines that are typically too devoid of snow to merit skiing.  I need to go back soon with slightly better stability and start checking them off the list! From the base of the crag, I got to work on the 3,300 foot climb to the summit.  With a reactive buried weak layer 40 cm down, I took the most conservative route on the climb.  Even though it was too cloudy to see anything, it was pretty cool to stand on the craggy summit of Castle crag in winter again.  And the ski run was incredible, with nice boot top powder top to bottom, and adequate coverage to have good skiing all the way to the creek.

Below the summit ridge and in the good powder.

Good powder near the bottom third of the run.

After a celebratory lunch break, I jammed back up my skin track to the lower summit ridge, and nosed my way into the next gully system down canyon.  The ski run ended up being much better than expected.  After negotiating the exposed headwall, I was treated to over a thousand vertical feet of smooth open gully skiing with more boot top powder. To my delight, the lower few hundred feet of the gully served up super fun half pipe style skiing reminiscent of the Pinball Wizard gully in Bass creek.

The exit was long.  Fortunately, I kind of like long ski walks out of the Bitterroot alone.  I kicker skinned my way out in a little over two hours.  7,000 vertical feet, done in 10 hours car to car.

Climbing for more.

Looking down the second gully.

Lower in the gully.

Half pipe skiing at the bottom of the gully.

I think that Castle crag is a little too far up canyon to be a classic, but any of the three South facing runs are worthy ski lines from one of the most distinctive peaks in the Bitterroot range.  

Blodget ski days

I had a trio of early winter ski ski days in Blodgett.  None of them were perfect, but all of them were decent, and all valuable experience in my quest to unravel the abundant yet fickle ski mysteries of Blodgett.

Mill Point, Shoshone and Kootenai gullies
Another late start.  I decided to climb from Blodgett to maximize time spent in new terrain.  I walked the normal Shoshone climbing approach and booted another few hundred feet above before putting skis on.  Footing was trecherous, and I fell once and knocked the wind out of myself and bruised or broke my ribs.  The fall hurt like a bugger, and it took about three weeks to heal, but I was able to keep skiing.  I skinned up the path between Shoshone and Flathead.  The long dry spell had closed, and there was up to 8" of new fresh snow. Skinning was tricky, and the new snow was predictably unstable on the old ice crust.  At the top, I cached heavy gear and skied the gully back down to the end of good snow at about 6,000 feet. The snowpack was thin, and I had to ski carefully, but it was a great 2,000 foot powder run.  

Looking down the Flathead gully.

I jammed back up my skin track and floundered a bit on dangerous collapsing slabs (not too scary, but I did have to employ meticulous, heads up routefinding) to Mill point.  I also tried to rock climb a rock step near the summit, and failed spectacularly.  Rock climbing is not a good idea with a broken rib, in ski boots.  In any case, I retreated before doing anything dumb and found another way to the summit, arriving just before sunset. I skied the Kootenai gully between the UK buttress and Nez Perce.  It is a great ski line, but it was terribly thin, and I clipped more rocks than I would have liked.  I skied as far as possible before picking my way down about 800 feet of classic Bitterroot slabs, steep grass, and talus to the trail.

The schuss out was filled in and fast.  I probably jumped into these a little early, but overall coverage is great and I need to start doing peak to creeks as conditions allow.  About 6.5 k, done in 7 hours.

Great snow at the top of the Kootenai gully.

Mill Point, Shoshone and Kootenai gullies
In full furlough style, I didn't leave the trailhead until 11 am after day care drop off, but had the rest of the day at my disposal.  I made the normal climb to Mill point in an even 3 hours, including a quick inconclusive pit stop (I dug my pit on a representative aspect, but the snowpack was too shallow to represent the thick wind slab avalanche hazard present on the steepest upper portion of the bowl).  In any case, the avalanche danger was a stout Moderate, but it was coming off a larger storm cycle that produced a lot of dangerous avalanches, especially in adjacent ridges, so it seemed prudent to treat it more like Considerable.

The trailbreaking was rather laborius all the way up, but I ground it out.  I had been skiing perfect powder day after day, and to my surprise, the snow was not very good, even up high.  From the summit, I nosed my way down the most conservative route in the main upper bowl.  The run was excellent, with fun glade skiing in the upper third, a fun gully in the middle third, and fun meadow skipping lower down.

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

I skied for a little over 2,000 vertical feet and climbed back to the summit.  I skied another lap in the bowl, climbed for a third summit, then booked it out to the car.  The exit took almost exactly an hour, and it was nice to arrive back at the car right at dark.  It was great to finally ski this excellent run, and I will keep it in mind as a good option when solar aspects are skiing well and the avalanche danger is on the moderate/considerable divide.  I was pretty tired today.  8.5k vert, 7 hours

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

Sears Lake couloir and peak to creek

Powder skiing above Sears Lake.

Jeffrey and I rallied at 4 am with high hopes of skiing a big day of peak to creek runs.  Unfortunately it was super warm, and we ended up spending a rather demoralizing few hours rain and mush skinning in the dark.  We left the trail at the High Lake trail junction.  I took the slop trailbreaking pull to freezing line, and Jeffrey took the glop trail breaking pull to the top of the Sears lake couloir.  I was feeling really low energy, and just did my best to keep up.  It had not snowed as much as I had feared overnight, and I felt quite confident dropping into the couloir.  The entrance is super funky, but we had quite amazing skiing once we got in the couloir itself.  It is a great line, and would be a classic were it not lodged so far away from civilization.

Jeffrey working his way through the scrappy entrance to the Sears Lake couloir.

Great skiing in the Sears lake couloir. 

 We still wanted to get to 10k in, but with terrible snow down low, decided to take the easy route and lap powder above Sears lake.  We took three varied and interesting runs above the lake.  For some reason, we were both really fighting fatigue, but we put our heads down and got it done on the climbs.  The skiing was great fun.  To end the day, we climbed to the big avalanche path of the Printz ridge high point.  We made the traverse from the Sears basin to the peak successfully, but were stymied by no visibility at the final upper headwall.  I was tired enough to be quite content with not bumbling around in the soup trying to find a safe way to the top, and Jeffrey kindly agreed to start heading down.  I want to return and ski this big one from the summit.  Even with very sloppy skiing in the lower half, we had a good run.  The trail out was a grind.  I really should have brought kicker skins to speed things up, but we resorted to traditional methods, making the exit in 2.5 hours.  I got lazy and ski skimmed over a lot of rocks on the trail, glad to have brought my durable Bitterroot adventure skis.

First run above Sears lake.

Third run above Sears lake.

Good skiing in the upper part of our peakish to creek run.

Big mountains, little skier.  Skiing to the trail.

This was, for me, the hardest ski day this year, and I was pretty whopped by the time we made it back to the car. We ticked just over 10k vert, done in 13 hours car to car.

Big Saint Joe for time

I am excited to get back to trying for fast times on local tours.  Avalanche conditions during the furlough were a little too high for many of the more exciting circuits, but with the Bass trail in mint shape, it seemed like a great time for Big St. Joe.  I was able to convince Leah and Justin to help put the skin track in up to the summit ridge the previous day during an enjoyable powder skiing tour, so the stage was set for an attempt.

Big Saint Joe.  The Southeast bowl is the obvious bowl dropping from the high point.

I headed out from the car with a race setup plus a bundle of warm clothes at a responsibly brisk pace.  The trail had enough soft snow on it that gliding was fast and efficient, and I made it to the meadows almost 15 minutes faster than expected.  I made the planned transition from fast skins to climbing skins, and made reasonable progress on the skin track through the tricky cliffs and into the bottom of the Southeast bowl.  To my minor chagrin, one of my skins blew, but I was able to swap it out without too much lost time.

Going up, low in the Southeast bowl.

I was quite surprised by the intensity of the alpine winds, but my time was good, so I proceeded, layering up incrementally as the intensity of the gale increased.  I had to re-break about a thousand vertical feet of trail from yesterday.  Even with close to hair trigger wind slabs, I was able to make a safe climb up onto the summit ridge.  I slowed down a lot on the summit ridge.  Honestly, my energy wasn't that good, but I also had to be pretty careful with very strong winds and fresh hard slabs right on the ridge (typically the ridge harbors stable, wind blasted sastruggi).  My body temp was OK, and time was still reasonable, so I carefully ground it out to the summit at three hours on the nose.  After a successful wind transition (i.e. standing on my pack so it wouldn't blow away), I skimmed back across the plateau, buoyed by the ferocious tailwind.  The ski down the peak was great fun.  The wind had wrecked yesterday's perfect powder, but it was safe, and I will never complain about 4,000 feet of consistently good skiing.  For speed, the descent was fast.  I made good time to the meadows, then blasted out to the car.  3.48 ctc.

Back at car.  Tired, frazzled, and happy

Splits for future reference: 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.


Thoughts
I think this is a good candidate for trying to ski faster.  It is a high, prominent mountain with a great ski line.  With care, it can also be safely skied with elevated avalanche danger.  It is interesting as a speed test in that it demands good flat skinning speed as well as good climbing speed cranking up the 4,000 vertical foot climb from the meadows.  The most significant challenge for posting a truly fast time is putting the energy and time in to pre-set a track.

I still think there is a faster way to get through the funk below the Southeast bowl.  Need to get that one dialed.  Also for speed, I lost as much as twenty minutes due to cold, trailbreaking, and poor skin choice.  On the contrary, I felt pretty good, and made spectacular-for-me time on the trail, so I think this time is representative of a very good time with perfect conditions if there is not a pre-set skin track.  I still don't know if the steep climbing and skiing prowess of my Nanga parbat setup would have bested my race skis for speed, but I had a lot of fun skiing the skinny skis today.  I think 3.30 might be possible.

On a tangential note, as a normal touring objective, I think that the Southeast bowl of Big St. Joe is a reasonable contender for a powder skiing venue with Considerable avalanche danger for skiers looking to do something other than the storm day classics.  The approach is a little tricky, but it really does not take much longer to get to the top of the Southeast bowl than to the top of Little St. Joe or Lappi.  And if one gets up there and avalanche conditions are surprisingly stable, one can easily move into more interesting terrain by going to the summit, skiing any of the  South face runs, or making the funky but reasonably quick climb to the Pinball Wizard gully and exiting that way.

Missions, Sheepshead Southwest face

Let's go ski that one!  Photo: Ned Gall

I was able to take advantage of a triple boost of stable snow, a solid partner, and the furlough to ski Sheepshead in the Missions.  I was doubtful that the weather would be good enough, but Ned was keen to have a look, so we headed out at a casual 9:30 after day care drop off. We parked low on the road, but there was plenty of time to ski the peak if conditions allowed.  It took two hours of climbing to surmount the inversion, but once we did we were in a warm, clear, happy world.

Approaching the trailhead below the inversion.

A preliminary look at the face indicated it was in great shape, but the state of the exit gully was an unknown.  I wanted to assess stability in the chute, so we traversed off the summit ridge and climbed the ski run directly, which necessitated a very long and somewhat exposed traverse.  A quick pit coupled with other signs of stability had us confident in stability on this very exposed ski objective.  It is a long grind, but we made steady progress on the climb, switching a few times between booting and steep skinning, and were on the summit about 4.5 hours after leaving the car.  My optimistic planning brain had kicked around the possibility of skiing a second run, but we didn't really have time to.  We both agreed to keep it at one run, but it was going to be one heck of a one-and-done tour.

Ned, booting...

...and skinning on the climb.

The ski run was amazing.  The snow was firm and smooth, and we took our time leapfrogging down the massive face.  We were not able to ski the exit couloir, but had brought crampons and an axe as a backup, and were able to downclimb with a reasonable margin of safety.  The skate across the lakes was quick and fun, and the trail was slow like it normally is.  We made it back to the car about 30 minutes after dark, safe and happy.  I had a fabulous day. Thanks to Leah for letting me stay out late and have this remarkable experience. 

Skiing off Sheepshead, just below the summit. Photo: Ned Gall

Ned skiing on Sheepshead, about half way down the face.

Downclimbing.  Non-trivial but safe.  Thin snow over ice, super glad to have spikes.

Thoughts
In my opinion, this is one of the most iconic lines in the area, with great skiing, but the exposure over cliffs and dubious exit make it too dangerous to be a classic.  Still very much worth doing, with a careful eye on conditions.

With over 4,000 vertical feet of drop, and a coverage crux at the bottom, finding good conditions is challenging, especially in spring.  I kind of think the best way to do it is in winter when the lower mountain has good skiing and the lakes are frozen, but preferably with enough snow to ski the exit.

Ned is getting after it this winter, skiing a ton and exploring where prudent.  Be like Ned.

Ben Brunsvold skied this in 2008 or 2009.  Perhaps the first ski descent? I would love to hear of anyone skiing it earlier.

I really should spend more time in the Missions figuring out the litany of slightly smaller but still very much worthy ski lines on the lower peaks.  I need to go back and ski Sheepshead's moderate looker's left gully.  I also need to spend two or three days exploring around Kakashe, and am running out of excuses to make an attempt on the Soneielem couloir.