Five days before our trip to the Tetons, Yeuhi,. Alex, and I skied a solid day on Mt Washington together. We wanted to do at least 6000 vertical feet, as this would be the vertical of some of the harder days we planned for Wyoming, such as the Skillet Glacier and Buck Mountain. So we got up early, slogged it up to Pinkham Notch, and parked way down on route 16, along with the 6000 or 7000 other people headed up the mountain that day.
We crossed over to the Sherburne for the second half of the way up. Dodge's up center, looking good.
Crossing around over to the top of Dodge's, after going up Hillman's.
Up close, Dodge's was in somewhat rough shape. There was plenty of snow, but the warm weather had left it cut up with deep trenches from the handful of previous skiers on that day. It seems like these last several years, the mountain goes from winter to summer, with no reliable spring period of warm days and sub-freezing nights to give the snow a good corn consistency. Anyway, I was feeling some adrenaline, even though I've skied the run at least twice before. Luckily, once I stepped into my skis, I immediately felt better and knew I could ski it. Amazing how much more comfortable one can feel once he has his skis on his feet.
Alex lookin down the barrel.
The first turn or two was a solid 45 degrees. Notice Alex's left hand almost touching the snow.
Yeuhi's photo of Alex.
After skiing out to the bottom of Hillman's, we headed back up, then made the long cross over the top of the Bowl and up the summit cone...
Then we made a downhill traverse into Huntington to check out Diagonal and Central. Central had a lot of ice up high and not much snow, so we went for Diagonal. Here's a shot from a fuel break, with Diagonal falling away at my feet.
Me heading down.
Diagonal is a really beautiful, rod-straight, pretty narrow couloir, not extremely steep but a very consistent pitch, with great rock walls which make you feel a part it.
Yeuhi gets after it.
Alex finishing out above the terminal ice bulge.
Yeuhi, getting ready to step in at the top of the last run, over the Lip and out the Shebie, good for about 2400 feet before the snow ran out.
Nailed it.
In the end, we skied about 6100 feet...although we were feeling really hot for a while there, because Alex's altimeter watch was giving a wildly optimistic estimate of about 7700 feet.
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