Grey Wolf peak, South couloir, fast

Nearing the running shoe/ski boot transition at Riddell lakes on Grey Wolf peak.

I have been meaning to try for a fast go at the iconic South couloir on Grey Wolf for a few years now, and finally made it happen.  The outing was fairly predictable for a long hard effort.  I went out at a responsibly hard pace and held it through the road, and through the early bits of trail.  I had packed a fairly light kit of race skis and boots, with no spikes, two bars, no extra clothes, and only a half liter of water.  It was nice to have a light pack.  Soon, I was working through moderately heavy downfall, and I spent about 45 minutes in the thick of it, alternating between trying to move quickly and swimming over, under, and around tree after tree.  I topped out on the flat pitch well behind my time goal, but made some time up on the melted out traverse into Riddell lake, and on a quick climb to the lake proper.  After a shoe to boot transition, I pushed as hard as I could to the top of the couloir.  I topped out well behind a 3-hour outing pace, but seemed on track to go sub-3.30.

Ready to negotiate the tricky entrance and ski.

The skiing was quick and quite enjoyable.  What a classic run!  I was soon back at my shoes, and within a few minutes, was back across the traverse and on the trail.  I made reasonable time on the trail back to the car, but didn't venture too deep into reckless tree hopping territory to make time up.  As such, I made it back to the car in 3.27, very happy, pretty tired, and a bit wondering if I should have pushed harder in a few places.

Nice early morning skiing below the couloir.

Thoughts  By memory, splits were: leaving saddle: 35 minutes; beginning of South traverse, 1.20, climbing from Riddell, 1.45; top 2.15; done with South traverse; 2.40; saddle inbound 3:15; car 3.27.  My time is pretty soft, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is still a FKT.  I think that I could have dug a little deeper and pushed into race and risk-of-blowing up territory and shaved up to 10 minutes.  I also think that I lost about 20 minutes to downfall, and I think that it would be possible to do this outing faster earlier in the season with more coverage.  That said, I had a lot of fun, and it was really nice to get back to this classic.