off the map

a few weeks ago i judged this slope just steep enough to slide, but not enough to run to far with the given snow pack. I opted to skin up far lookers right on dirt and grass to be safe. I sneaked through the starting zone by threading the rock line in center of the photo. I also summited and skied the far left ridge of the peak in the background...in retrospect I should have skied the sunlit ridge. I returned a week later, but it was blown clean to bare rock

Same slope a week later after 10 inches and heavy wind

And the killer granite alpine spires. These serve up about 500 feet of climbing and top out at 10,000 ft.

conjoined!

Before After

Here comes the brain (s)! Olfactory nerves, snip, snip! Optic nerves, snip, snip!

Two hearts! Both had four chambers and all the normal veins and arteries. The one in the foreground was bigger and connected to the dominant liver and lungs. The smaller heart connected to a tiny liver and lungs that would not inflate. I would have liked to explore the circulatory system in more depth, but time and resources did not allow. The organism had two esophogouses that merged into one digestive system. There was a single male reproductive system. The skeletal system contained a forked spine with ribs extending from the right side of the right spine and the left side of the left spine. The spine of the dominant head was half the diameter (2 inches), although the chord and brain were identicle.

And one nightmare shot for good measure! Don't worry buddy, we'll have you home to mommy soon! Moooo!

This organism died a few hours after birth. While improper grazing can lead to high rates of conjoined twins, this calf was born on a well managed, all natural ranch. A rare event made even more odd because someone was around who wanted to disect it.

The pictured eyes from the dominant head dissected normaly, while an eye from the lesser head seemed to have no retina.

The organism shared this set of testis...one person asked, "how do the testis connect to the eyes?"

More Dickey Peak ridge routes....the profile shows the top third of the more Northern (looker's left) ridge, taken from the more Southern ridge. Summit in background.

These last two are from an attemt on Bora. After stumbling around the LRR for a few months now, the trail (!) felt like an escalator. Even so, I was thwarted by an exposed, icy class three rock section, which I was unprepaired for, wearing only my ski boots. After Neil laughed at my previous week's efforts being stopped by steep scree, this rejection didn't feel so bad.

The steep coulies are on Bora's West face; this shot encompasses 3,000 verticle feet. Final shot: Yeti sighting!

Breakfast of Yetis!

These mountains are way bigger than they look! Last weekend I woke up a 5 AM to summit these peaks only to run out of time shy of the top. Better route selection and a headlamp might have made a difference. The full moon shot is just north of Willow Creek summit. The peak with the fence in the foreground is Dickey Peak. The upper ridge of this route was about 45 degrees at its steepest and provided about 80 velvety medium radius turns on a ten foot wide swath of snow between the scree on the right and a ten foot cornice drop into an avalanch path on the left. Being solo, I opted to stay out of the path. more to come...

Cabin Mountain

Early season decent of Cabin mountain's North face via the direct central ridge. No summit views today. Instead, intermitant snow showers combined with just enough wind to transport and deposit, but not scour, left me with plenty of soft snow. After shralping the North face, I skiined back up lookers right to ski the long V-notch couloir that starts on Cabins North West shoulder. This couloir is a 1,500 foot fall line shot to my car!

Nice day for fishing and glassing ski lines.

Name Change

Months ago, talk of renameing this blog began circulating, the rumor being that "climbupskidown" was siply too Newtonian. Today, white smoke rose from the wood burner, signaling a name had been chosen....Clown Yeti! This change heralds in a new era and location. Although the name has changed, the address and spirit of the site remain.

Cross hairs are aimed high at first decents of a new local moutain range that is not only "too steep to ski", but is also "inaccesable" because of a lack of trails. Advice so far has consisted of, "son, you best get yourself a horse, a four wheeler and a snow machine!" From an ex-montanan's perspective, the access here is better than ever and the steep terain keeps me up at night. With one day of easy-access steep skiing in the books (http://www.panoramio.com/photo/11942272?source=wapi&referrer=kh.google.com), its only a matter of time and training.

Links to more pics of steep skiing terain out my back door:
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/8249666?source=wapi&referrer=kh.google.com
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/1871937?source=wapi&referrer=kh.google.com
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/14835399?source=wapi&referrer=kh.google.com
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/52547346?source=wapi&referrer=kh.google.com
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/2108043?source=wapi&referrer=kh.google.com

Brook trout massacre

Ghost Faced Killa' at his weekly weigh in, blissfully unaware of his keeper's mastery over fishes.

you doesn't hasta call me Ralston

For 127 seconds, my arm was pinned by a few hundered pounds of course grained gritty granite, this was the result, not bad!

Sick!

Cleanly ejected fetal bambi twins, discovered on country bicycle ride. By the time I returned with a camera, the mother, located ten yards away and clearly dead, was gone. There had been no damage to the mother except for the clean ejection of the bambies and other dear contents, like intestines, stomach, maybe a liver, via one large portal. Several of my friends requested that I post these pics, weirdos.

Some guy from Bridger, Ty, sends at Moonlight.

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!