Shutdown on Nez Perce

A trip report from Thursday: After looking at the weather forecast and seeing that snow was predicted for this afternoon and the coming week, I realized that today would be the last chance to get up into the high peaks for some time. With that in mind, Jon and I decided to go and try to ski the West Hourglass Couloir on Nez Perce. Once again, we left from the Taggart/Bradley Lake trailhead at about 8 in the morning. Luckily it wasn't too cold out and the temperature was perfect for skinning. The sky was clear, but that was soon to change. After ascending the lateral moraine that seperates Taggart Lake from Bradley Lake, we quickly crossed the frozen Bradley Lake and began ascending into Garnet Canyon. It was my first time into Garnet Canyon this winter, and I am always excited to go there, as it is one of my favorite places to go. Most of the high peaks in the Teton Range rise out of Garnet Canyon. Once in the canyon we began skinning toward Nez Perce, which is a peak located on the south side of the canyon. As we gradually ascended up-canyon, the wind started to pick up, which is usually the case because the canyon acts somewhat like a wind funnel. At this point the skies began to darken, and we had to don an extra layer of clothing to protect against the wind and cold. When we arrived at the apron below the West Hourglass Couloir, we noticed there was a party of two up ahead of us inteding to ski the same route. As the skinning became too steep, we took our skis off, attached them to our packs, and started to hike uphill. After a short while, we saw that the party ahead of us was starting to prematurely ski down. Surely they could not have reached the top of the couloir so quickly. As they passed us coming down, they said they had turned around at the base of the couloir due poor conditions. Not wanting to take their word for it, we decided to continue up and have a look for ourselves. Once we got to their high point, we realized they had been right, and the couloir above was in horrendous condition. The snow had been completely hammered by the wind and though we could probably descend it on skis, we would hardly be "skiing" it. More likely just skidding down. It also did not look to be very safe, as in, a fall or slip would have been a bad idea. We also had a fair amount of rock falling near us, which did not seem very appealling to my helmetless head. Jon, being a bit smarter than I, had brought a helmet and quickly put it on. On top of all that, it was beginning to snow. After judging the conditions to not be in our favor, we decided to stop where we were and ski down without reaching our objective. The ski down was uneventful, if not really poor skiing. I was very tired when we reached the truck after three long, consecutive days in the mountains. Things did not exactly line up for us today, but that is how it goes in ski mountaineering. Luckily, I don't think the West Hourglass will be going anywhere anytime soon, and we can try it again under better conditions.

Wildlife Viewing on Shadow Peak

One of the great things about skiing in the Tetons is you never know when you might run into some interesting wildlife. This picture was from a trip up Shadow Peak yesterday, but I also saw these two moose a couple days earlier on a trip to the same area. These moose did not seem to mind us skiing by them, but we gave them a wide berth anyways. I don't think you want to mess with a mama moose and its youngin.

Spoon Couloir

Since the avalanche danger has been significantly lower in the last few days, I figured it was high time to go out and ski something a little bigger and steeper. I was able to convince Jon that skiing the Spoon Couloir on Disappointment Peak would be a lot better way to spend the day than sitting at home and watching the inauguration. We started out from the Taggart /Bradley Lake trailhead at about 8 in the morning. It was absolutely freezing when we started. The temperature at the house was -9 degrees. We practically sprinted away from the parking lot due to the cold and were able to quickly warm up. After crossing a frozen Bradley Lake, we then had to make a sketchy creek crossing over a snow bridge, and after that, the trail ascended up through the forest and then eventually leveled out at Surprise and Amphitheater Lake. Once we crossed Surprise and Amphitheater lake, which are directly below Disappointment Peak, we had to take our skis off and began to hike up the very steep couloir to the left of the Spoon. Luckily, there had already been two groups up the couloir ahead of us, and they left a great bootpack for us to ascend. Since we did not have to break any trail, the hike up seemed almost too easy. It felt like we were cheating. Once on top of the ascent couloir, we made a right turn and headed to the top of the Spoon Couloir. On previous trips up Disappointment Peak, I had kept climbing at this point and had tried to climb as high on the east face as possible. However, since it was getting a bit late (12 o'clock) and we had a long way to go down, we decided to just start skiing at the top of the Spoon at about 10,700ft. The skiing in the couloir was very steep (45+ degrees), and the snow was quite hard but still manageable. We slowly and carefully made our way down the couloir one at a time, stopping in various safe zones to watch each other ski. Once out of the couloir we still had a long ski descent all the way back down to the truck. With all of the up and down in the day, we ascended and descended about 4,600 ft. The beers at the end of the day couldn't have been better. A larger video can be viewed at www.youtube.com/user/jhskier13.

Windy Day on 25 Short

Today I went back up 25 Short with climbing ranger Ed Visnovske. As you can see, it was a bit windy at the top with gusts that we estimated to be between 50-60 mph. One of these days I will get better footage of us actually skiing down. However, this is a good representation of the fact that we spend about 80 percent of the day going up, and only 20 percent of the day actually skiing down.

Skiing Maverick

I was finally able to get out and ski something different than 25 Short today. Jon and I decided to head up Maverick, which is just to the south of 25 short, to see what it had to offer. Well, the first thing that it had to offer was some more heinous trailbreaking. Seven inches of new snow (about 18-20 in. in the last two days) and a lot of wind obscured most of the skin track (that's the trail we ski up). And when there is no pre-existing skin track, some one has to put it in by breaking trail. This job fell to us because we happened to be the first ones up it today. I'm not sure why this happens to me so frequently, but it must be my early starts. If you want to call 9 in the morning early. We were finally able to reach a suitable high point at 9,500 ft. and decided to strip the skins and enjoy the deep powder on the way down. Well, this didn't exactly happen. The snow was very deep, but also very wet and heavy. This was probably due to it being a balmy 30 degrees when I left the house, while reaching an even more tropical 40 degrees during the day. The heavy, deep snow made the skiing down quite difficult, and we made tentative turns down. Despite the gruelling trek up I had been ready to make two trips up the slope to get some more skiing in, but the conditions coming down did not warrant another trip up. I decided to bag the second trip up and skied back down to the car. I guess not every day can be perfect and effortless. Luckily, snow conditions are always changing and tomorrow could be perfect.

Another two days on 25 Short

I was able to get out yesterday and today to once again ski on 25 Short. Yesterday I skied with Jon White, while today I went up by myself. The reason that I have been skiing on 25 Short so frequently is because the avalanche conditions have still been a bit high, and 25 Short is one of the safer slopes in the park. The last few days have been really warm (well, if you consider 30-35 degrees warm) and thus, the snow that has fallen has been very wet and heavy. This does not make for good skiing, and it definetly does not make for easy trailbreaking. Yesterday, Jon and I had some of the most horrendous trailbreaking that I have ever experienced. It was not very deep, but the snow was so heavy that it was hard to break through. Today, I was smart enough to get a little bit later start, and there was a group in front of me who was breaking the trail. Luckily, I was not quite fast enough to catch up to them and help out. Last night, the temperature was colder than it has been, and the 6 inches of snow that fell was light and fluffy. This made for incredible skiing most of the way down the slope. However, the bottom of the slope was still more of the heavy, wet snow. Above is a picture of 25 Short.

Pesticide Gulch Avalanche

Here are a few pictures of an avalanche that took place on Pesticide Gulch which is on the very north end of 25 Short. The avalanche took place a few days before these pictures were taken when we skied over to take a look at it. The crown was only about 3 ft. at the top, but it slid for about 1,000 to 1,500 ft. The slide went into a narrow gully and then all the way to the valley floor.

Freezing Cold on 25 Short

I went out with Alex Enna to ski on 25 Short in Grand Teton National Park on Sunday. The reason that it's called 25 Short is because its summit is 25 ft. short of 10,000 ft. When I woke up in the morning the skies were clear for the first time in a few days. However, because it was so clear it was also incredibly cold. As I drove to the trailhead, the radio said that the temperature at the airport was -26 degrees F. Once I got to the trailhead, I had trouble unlocking the camper shell because the locks were frozen. I had to heat them up with my jetboil stove, which was barely functioning itself. After getting into the back of my truck and also de-icing my ski bindings, we finally took off skinning up the trail and quickly warmed up. In no time, I was starting to sweat and had to shed down to my normal skinning layers. The going up was easy and we made it up the 3,400 ft. approach in about 2 1/2 hours. Once on top, the cold crept back in, and I had to put on all my layers including my micro-puff jacket and expedition mittens. My hands didn't warm up until we reached the bottom. However, all thoughts of the cold disappeared as we started skiing down. The snow was light and effortless and we quickly made turns down, leapfrogging each other, and trying to find fresh tracks. The path we took down had seen a lot of skier traffic in the last 2 days, but we were still able to find untouched snow.