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.