Variations on the classics, 2024

With terrible coverage and a historically poor early season snowpack, it seemed like sticking to familiar haunts and moderate terrain yielded the best results in winter 2024.  Here are a few variations and extensions on classic tours that I thought were particularly good.

Gash to Glenn - 2/18/24

Inspired by upward trending stability and snowpack, Ned and I stashed a car on the Big creek road and headed up the normal Gash skin track around first light, intent on bouncing our way from Gash to Glenn.  Our first run was down the normal main North face of Gash proper, and with powder top to bottom, it was far and away the best run of the season so far.  We made a kind of annoying trek through thin snow and downfall into upper Sweathouse, then made our way to a point a few hundred feet below the exact summit of Hidden lake peak where the ridge turns to crags.  We took a steep and excellent run down the Northeast shoulder, ending at Hidden lake.  From there, we bopped our way out on conventional terrain:  up to Glenn lake peak, down a most excellent run on the Northeast shoulder, up to the pass that the summer trail goes through, then roughly down the summer trail. The very long road exit was aided tremendously by monster truck tracks, which allowed us to bomb down the low grade road all they way out to our car, parked way out in the valley.   

Starting down Gash proper.

Mentally cruxing on the long climb to Hidden.

After a dismal early season, it was kind of a head snapper to have a truly great ski day linking together interesting runs with excellent snow.  It also filled the soul a bit to spend a long day walking around in the mountains with Ned.  I think we both needed a day just like this one.  This is a great and surprisingly challenging tour.  I think it would be more logical to tighten up and skip Hidden lake peak.  The main downside in my opinion is that the shuttle is long enough that it kind of makes more sense to just ski each zone separately and not monkey with all of the traverse logistics.

Big Joe to Bass Bowl Bounce - 3/20/24

With a proper early start, I made it way up onto the shoulder of Big Saint Joe for a simultaneous shoe/ski boot transition and first light.  I boosted up to the summit, then skied the upper 2/3 of the westernmost big South facing avalanche paths before traversing up canyon where the gully gets scrappy.  To my shock, I popped out on the trail to see a hiker sending it through deep snow between Bass and Kootenai creek.  Although I had some misgivings about the wisdom of trying a hike like that with such deep snow, it was pretty cool to see someone out for a true adventure.  I also encountered a really nice party of two skiers camped at Bass lake and was  most grateful for their skin track to the top of Bass peak.  I followed what I consider the condensed full Bowl bounce route back to the car.  Up Smokey Joe West, down the Southeast bowl (with much care to manage very dangerous warm new snow), then the traversing climb up the West fact of Lappi point, then a most splendid powder run down the classic west bowl.  Walking out Bass is way less fun than skiing out, but that was the hand this year, and it was a nice spring day to do it.  At 11k of vertical, this was a long but very good day.

On the way up Big Saint Joe.

Bass peak.  Good stuff.

Sky Pilot to Mystery Chutes - 4/16/24

I was able to sneak this one in against all odds.  Our friend Sarah envisioned and executed this tour in early spring 2021 by combining two classic but quite long tours into a single day.  When I heard about it, I was impressed but not surprised that she could get something that big done.  The more I though about it, I became convinced that I was capable of repeating her tour, with a really cold day, fast conditions, and my best fitness.  

So when a blustery but cold day rolled around, I went for it.  I sequenced the tour as follows: up Gash (no summit), high traverse above Bear lake, up and down North face of Gash to Bear lake, up to Gash proper summit, short North face run, up to Mystery, down main Mystery, then kick it up the long North face of Gash and cruise out. The day was challenging but went about as smoothly as could be expected.  Conditions were so firm that I only used skins for about half of the climbing, and the rest was spend kicking away at ice.  The skiing was all icy, but ice of the grippy and fast variety, and I was most relieved to find the lower reaches of the Mystery chute surprisingly skiable for spring, as lower elevation shaded chutes tend to get clogged by horrid roller ball debris.  A touch over 10k vetical feet.

All the respect for pioneering this link up, Freebird.

At the transition to climbing to the Mystery chutes after a truncated run on Gash proper.

About to engage the mystery of the Mystery chutes.  How icy will it be? 
Will I encounter horrid roller death balls?  Will there be snow at the bottom? 
The answers were, pretty icy, luckily no, and yes, just enough.

Pyramid to Crescent - 5/3/24

With waning snow on solar aspects, I decided to try climbing solar and skiing shaded on this must do tour.  I was able to get a good solid early start for a week day, so Pyramid was pretty much all firm ice, and the climb up Matt was cold and fast.  I skied the skier's left chute on the North face of Matt, and found 6" of perfect settled powder, which made for one of the stand out runs of the season.  

On the Crescent run, I let my guard down and triggered a 6" slab.  Although I was able to dig into the bed surface and let the slab pass, the debris pile piled up way too deep for my liking, and this was a dumb mistake.  I should have payed more attention to new snow stability, but even more relevantly, it would have been easy to avoid the starting zone slab, and there wasn't any good reason not too - I was just lazy and I wanted to ski a clean, straight aesthetic line.  Do better next time.

I exited early and was back to the car shortly after noon.  It's nice sometimes in the spring to get it done early and enjoy a warm afternoon in the valley.

Looking down the excellent North couloir on Matt.
I triggered a slab on the obvious open face of Crescent dead center facing the camera.
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McDonald from Glacier Lake - 6/23/24

When the skiing kept being good in early spring, I made a soft goal to get to 10 x 10,000 foot days, and this last ski day of the year got me there.  After a great weekend of morrell harvesting and camping in the Seeley lake valley, I boosted out of camp extra early and drove up to the Glacier lake trailhead.  The morning was spent hiking to Heart lake, bushwacking to the crest, and mostly walking down dry land to the toe of the mighty East face of McDonald.  I summited a bit before noon and took a wildly successful 3,000 foot run down the classic Northwest snowfield.  After jamming back up along my track, I skied a fun run down the East ridge and East face, then got good and tired piecing together a climb to an unnamed peak west of Point Saint Charles, which allowed access to a great run down the north face to snow line.  As is customary for the Missions, a solid bushwack was required to regain the Heart lake trail, and from there it was smooth sailing to the car.  The last turns of the year are always bittersweet, even when it is time to embrace the changing seasons.

Looking out to McDonald.  One of the more scenic approaches around.

East ridge of McDonald.

Flathead Traverse (V2)

Even though my 2020 Flathead traverse outing was a success, I had hankering to return to try it in a single push.  The line itself is inspiring, and I was excited for the novel challenge of pushing through the night deep in the wilderness.  Anticipating an early fire season, July seemed like the best bet for good conditions. I got enough early season run specific training to feel physically prepared(ish), and jumped when life logistics aligned in July.  In accordance with tradition, I biked the 40-mile shuttle the previous evening and tucked in for a short night of sleep.

Classic Flathead range view.

I rolled out of the trailhead at 4 am.  Unfortunately, the first few hours were a little but off.   I was intimidated and felt surprisingly tired and bonky.  I tried to put those thoughts aside and instead stay in the moment, engaging with the route and keeping the effort in check.  Fortunately, things turned around, each peak started feeling easier, and I arrived on Penrose feeling good and on pace.  Having drastically under hydrated during the previous outing, I hauled a gallon from the start, which allowed me to stay hydrated and happy over Nyack.  Great Northern summit came soon enough.  A cool breeze kept the afternoon comfy, as I worked through the most splendid alpine section of the traverse over Grant and Liebeg.  As anticipated, it got dark near Cameawait, and I headlamped my way to the snowpatch below the Felix summit anticipating a nice long water break.  I found ample water, but a stiff breeze made my planned evening break unappealing, so I kept rolling.  I successfully weaved a new to me route all the way down the Northwest ridge of Felix and made a snap decision to follow a game trail all the way to the summer trail east of the divide.  Moderately big mistake.  I ended up loosing the game trail and generally lost a lot of time swimming through alder in search for the trail.  Then botched all possible routefinding in Logan creek.  Oh well.  Fortunately, my body never felt too tired, and first light brought a predictable energy boost as I climbed up to point 8001.  

First summit of fifteen.

Looking back at Great Northern and getting psyched for the night.

The second morning was sublime.  Temps were crisp, the engine was still firing, body was intact, and psyche was high.  The Baptiste/Cirrus/Dry Park section went really smoothly.  The day became uncomfortably hot around Dry Park, and even with a snowpatch detour, I didn't secure enough water to be comfortable.  Dumb mistake.  High noon found me sitting in a shade patch on the last peak - Crossover - nursing a few sips from the meager water reserve and getting ready to descend into a bushwack of unknown magnitude.  Fortunately, I made it out but not without getting cliffed out a few times, wearing all of the skin off my shins from brush, and shriveling down to what felt like an emaciated raisin from lack of water.  Soon enough, I popped out on the Hungry Horse road and shuffled out to the car.  Dodging cars flying down the dusty road at 50 mph in my sleep deprived and overheated state was quite a jarring experience after two days in the mountains alone.    

All smiles on the second morning.

Looking back from Baptiste

Flip flops, unlimited water, and a dip in the reservoir were much appreciated.  July 15 - 16, 2024; 35 hours, 4 minutes from trailhead to car.  This outing was hard and exposed and challenging, but felt within my abilities.  I got what I wanted to out of it.  Hoping for more of this type of thing in future years.

I think my line is pretty good, but the Crossover to valley section needs some refinement.  Ending at Dry Park would allow for an easier route out to the valley and avoid the kind of meh section between Crossover and Dry Park.  Or, descending to the Twin creek trailhead from Crossover (skipping the portions of the trail that no longer exist) would be about as fast as the bushwack and would be a touch more aesthetic, in my opinion.