Hot breakfast among the moose shit. Yeuhi hoping it won't rain again.
The blurriness of this photo is about how I felt.
Not long after we got on our skis, rain began. At this point, we all understood we would be pushing through it. If we had pushed through the rain on the previous attempt, we actually would have had great conditions for all but the first hour or two of the day. Therefore, we suffered through intensifying rain and decent wind, just following the skin track we had set the previous morning. The precip was turning to hail and it was starting to feel quite rough, however. After getting soaked like this for hundreds of vertical feet, we had a quick conference. We decided to give it another 10 minutes, and if it was still pouring on us, we'd turn tail. The snow was mature, but how much rain could it take without getting unstable?
Like magic, the rain soon started tapering off. We could feel that our luck was changing and without discussion, we continued cranking out the climb.
Skinning up in an alpine environment in the middle of the night was entirely surreal. After the rain storm let up, I felt a bit more free to reflect on how amazing a situation we were in. A sphere of black outside our headlamp beams, yet an intuitive awareness of the shoulders of the mountain, darker than dark, embracing us on either side of our route.
We saw a few things puncture the darkness. We did get some views of stars and planets. I saw headlights all the way across Jackson Lake, must have been driving up the Signal Mountain road. The winding road guided the headlights in a circular path around switchbacks, turning the car into a lighthouse. The headlights lingered at the top for a while, then eventually drove back down. Not sure who was up there at 3:30 in the morning, or why. We could also faintly see another headlamp, about 1500 feet below us, coming up our way--another group was on the mountain with us.
Eventually the dark gave way to twilight and we got a view of pink light rising over Jackson Lake.
Booting up the avy debris field on the glacier.
Yeuhi punching it up the bootpack, 3500 ft into a 5000 ft day, entering the handle of the Skillet.
Alex is not even breathing hard.
Approaching the elevation of the East Horn, which is 1100 ft lower than the summit of Moran.
We were really killing it, making good time. The snow was firm corn in the center of the Skillet's handle, with mature windbuff on either side, so travel was quick. We felt we were on target to be on top by our intended time, I believe 8:30. Unfortunately, the central avenue of firm corn we'd been cramponing up had been buried under newer windbuff as we got within a couple hundred feet of the final couloir. Our crampons started balling up with this dense, non-granular snow, and our pace dropped dramatically. Eventually we stowed our crampons and barebooted.
In the photo below, Alex shows a crampon, with a huge ball of snow clinging on.
Yeuhi and Alex, synchronized bootpacking.
Damn it was beautiful. Notice we're well above the East Horn now.
After what seemed like a long period at a crawling pace, in spite of moving with great resolve, we approached the rock slab of the summit headwall and diagonalled left into the final summit couloir. The newish windbuff was becoming a bit of an issue. It was getting deeper, and was inverted in density--firmish on top, hollowish underneath. As we were often collapsing into this, it was slowing us down further, but moreover, it's a classic point of focus regarding snowpack stability. We discussed the issue, all the while looking at our watches, and looking at the trickles of water on the rock walls which indicated that the morning sun was starting to have an effect.
We dug a snowpit and did a propagation test, which was favorable--but it was just one test. We went back and forth, burning several minutes. We settled on the conclusion that it was probably safe to ski, but we would've needed significantly more time to build enough confidence in that judgement. Since the mountain was warming up, we turned around here, just a couple hundred feet from the top.
Alex and Yeuhi downclimbing out of the upper couloir, smiling in spite of the decision to bail.
Yeuhi skiing from our launchpad. East Horn way below.
Me skiing. The guy at right is whose headlamp we saw early in the morning. He was solo, had kayaked across the lake the day before and camped by the shore. Unless he knew just where to go, the schwack up from the lake must have been rough in the dark. Not sure what became of him---we didn't see him for the rest of the day.
Above and below: Yeuhi's photos.
A mudslide which erupted early that morning, during the intense rain. We heard it run and it was quite an impressive noise, though we couldn't tell what it was.
Skiing out the apron. Our campsite is down near the end of the snow, on the left.
We managed to ski a continuous line back to camp, which had eluded us the day before. It's a very satisfying feeling, not known to non-bc skiers, how nice it is to ski back to your home--in the middle of wilderness.
After we got to camp, we chilled out for a little while, then started packing up. After about 40 min in camp, the upper mountain's upper hanging snowfields started sluffing big time, in what added up to large wet loose slides which were probably impacting our route at certain points. This erased any lingering regrets we might have had about canning it.
We hadn't seen "the guy" since we passed him on the way down. Not sure if he passed our campsite without us knowing or what. Never heard of any missing person, so he must have gotten out fine.
Packs loaded, heading out. Alex's photo.
The upper handle of the Skillet at center. Our turnaround point was the bottom of the skinny upper chute. The true summit is at center, East Horn at left, NE ridge at right--it just looks taller due to perspective. The slides were from its hanging snowfields.
Alex's photo above.
Inexplicably, our bushwhack route back to the trail at Trapper Lake was somewhat less direct than the way in. Anyway, we got there, and continued on down past Bearpaw, to Leigh Lake. The couple miles along the shore of Leigh, was, speaking personally, pretty brutal, as I was very tired and the soles of my feet always get sore on significant hikes.
Thanks to Alex for the photo above.
This was really an excellent day, very memorable for me. At 4900 feet of continuous skiing, it was the most substantial single run I have ever skied, except perhaps lift-served at Whistler, where it is possible to do about 5100 ft. Moreover, the remoteness and sense of solitude was a vital element in the experience. Such a great time, yet we were within ten minutes of pulling the plug during the hailstorm!
No comments:
Post a Comment