last blast with intact meniscus

In the 1930's, as en economic stimulus, our federal government financed the building of a road from Red Lodge to Cooke City that has since offered unparalled access to the skier in search of steep slopes in the summer time. Flat light and seriously firm snow hindered only our pictures.










BTH chairlift



extra-heady bro drops the knee to tele

Matt, just off the lift

one mountain is not enough!

11 PM Friday, Peat pushes his Subaru over the bulldozed talus field. 500 feet of precariously stacked rocks on the right and a 200 foot drop to the creek bed on the left make this one of wilder pieces of road i've ever been on. This early in the year, the dozer has not been through yet and the "road" is littered with debris. Sparks fly from the Subaru's underside. After stashing my truck, we took the Subaru to the next canyon North, our starting point. 4 hours of sleep later, Pete collects water at sunrise. Surely, the cyanide used in the mining claim at the head of this creek is no more. We summited Peak 10,526 in about 3.5 hours. The second picture shows Pete skiing in the fore ground with our second objective, Peak 10, 9??, the biggest peak in the background. Snow did not extend to the valley floor and we were forced to bushwack over scree and thorns. Also, it turns out that our truck was about half a mile up the road from were we came out, oops. In our truck we had stashed gatorade, hot coffee, turkey, goo, and smoothie. We drove about a mile or so to the start of our next ascent, feeling pretty good.

Pete skis away from the death star. Our descent from 10,526 was early and icy, but by the time we decended our second summit the sun had done its damage and we were forced to manage wet slides in complex terain above cliffs, good practice.

Sneaky shortcut.

After climbing a total of 8,000 verticle feet, we photodocumented our second summit, looking back at the first (don't mind the NASCAR shades). The descent from Peak 10,9?? is most excellent for the glisse mountaineer. After dealing with the wet slide hazard off the summit we skied cream cheese frosting for about 1,000 feet to a steep rollover which realeased 6 inches deep upon ski cutting. We skied the wet bed surface down into the debris. From this point we skied about 2,000 more feet of variable but fun snow to within 20 yard of my truck. Tick, tick!

Eleven months ago we made a monumental botch of an ascent of this same peak. We pushed on to salvage our trip, but clearly these mountains had gotten the better of us. This past weekend we once again found ourselves dwarfed by 3,000 feet of interminable talus. This time we nailed the approach, walking first in our shoes over firm snow, then booting up 30-35 degree firm snow with alpenstocks in hand. Finally we gained a talus ridge and switched back to shoes. From here we accended and traversed 3rd-4th class snowy, loose, semi-frozen-in-place talus to the start of our intended descent. Things had gone so well at this point that we figured we would descend the 3,000 ft couloir in about 10 minutes then skin further up canyon and explore. I dumped out most of my water, confident we would be at the creek shortly.

Our slope began at about 45 degrees and

appeared soft. We were suspicious that an inch

of wind deposited snow cloaked a uniform surface of frozen spring snow. After I was unable to start, Ty gave it a shot. It was immediatly apparent that the slope was a no-go due to ice. Ty executed two hairball traverses while self belyaing with an ice ax, and one houdini kick turn with liberal aid from a horn of rock to deposit himself "safely" back on the rocks next to the couloir. We both down climbed rock for about 300 feet until the angle was less then 40 degrees and began our icy decent with axes handy.

In this shot, I'm perched safely on a rock as Ty gingerly holds an edge with over 2,000 feet to go. Clearly visible is the inch of wind deposit and the underlying ice. Still a long slide.












Ty finishes up the first half. Notice the complete lack of tracks...ice axe still in hand. From when we began our descent to this point was well over an hour of very tedious skiing.
















In these final two photos, Mike traverses hard left to bypass the waterfall! We found a continuous snow passage and for the final 1,000 feet we were totally in the clear... 30 degree slopes with perfect corn welcomed us through the final rock lined chute and on to the trail.













































These mountains contain a lifetime of big ski lines. Photos like this ensure we'll be back.

First tracks out of bounds or bust! Matt looses points for crossing Pete's tracks. My line was skier's left in the midget trees. The directimus line awaits safer conditions. Regrettably, we did not photo document our second lap, a half-mile long 2,000 vertical foot tube ride shaded from the sun.

As the saying goes: there are no friends on a powder day. This was put to the test this season as many storms hit on friday night, workingman's powder. I rolled up to my best man's house...not quite ready? Later! I got first chair, he got eighth. That same day he ditched his girlfriend on the first run. Times are tough for the liftbound powderhound in Bozeman these days, so many brosephs on rocker tip izzle fat skis. If one hesitates, let alone stop for a picture, one might miss first tracks down the nasal cavity (sorry matt), or worse, first in line for D-route. This rat race has driven us beyond the boundries in search of untracked adventure. Returning from the backcountry, we've found new joy in exploring the steepest most technical inbounds terain (dice game) with the confidence inspired by the the ski patrol's avalanche control work, something I used to take for granted. As the season turns and the snowpack changes we wait till the time is right to ski the biggest steepest lines where no one else will be, big mountain season!

Liz, Neil and Trevor hand jam at indian creek, once home to the Anasazi whose artifacts are well preserved in the dry climates (yes, that is a corn cob, only 3 inches long). The grooves in the picture were located near the unmarked ruins (also picured) This is were the Anasazi filed their nails.

After stuffing myself for thanksgiving I headed back home but not before a quick trip to Alaska Basin and Table Mountain on the West side of the Tetons.