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.

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.

Early Season Grey Wolf West couloir

Grey Wolf Peak, West face.

I was able to take advantage of a surprise day off to honor the death of our 41st president and ski.  The early season has been kind of weird, so I headed to the Missions with enough gear for steep skiing, but without a real agenda.  The trail is a lot of work right now, and it took about 30 minutes longer than normal to top out on the the south shoulder of ESM.  To my delight, the West couloir of Grey Wolf looked good, so I headed that way.  I embarrassingly got cliffed out on the ski down to No Fish lake, and had to skin back up and find a better passage.  But I persevered. I was at the base of the West in time for a cold lunch stop.  The couloir looked great, so I headed up.

Excited to have a peak.

Great skiing off the shoulder of ESM.

The climb was about average.  Booting was pretty wallowey, but the snow was forgiving enough that I was also able to put skis on and skin for short bits.  There were a few shallow slabs and one easy little rock/ice step at 2/3 height, but nothing too concerning.  After about an hour and a half dozen booting to skiing transitions, I was at the top.  The ski down was predictably great.  In fact, conditions were some of the best I have seen in the couloir.  I was soon back at the lake, giddy and ready for a short second lunch break.

Grey Wolf West couloir in good condition.

I spent the rest of the day just cruising around on mellower terrain.  I skinned back out to the South shoulder and took a good run south into the bowl adjacent to the approach ridge, yo-yoed a short lap on the climb back out, then climbed to the South shoulder one last time before the egress.  The South shoulder runs were a lot of fun, with surprisingly good snow.  The egress was slower than normal since skiing stops pretty high, but the trail is snowy and slippery most of the way back to the valley bottom.  Running shoes and micro spikes were helpful.

At the bottom of the South shoulder bowl run.

About 10,300 vertical feet, done in 9 hours, 15 minutes at a reasonable pace with stops to giggle in sheer delight at how much I enjoy skiing.

10k day #2