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.