one of six over 18 inches after work last week. This one was over two feet! Sorry buddy, go back to spawning.

looking up at "Super Gully" from  almost 10,000 feet. I accended the gully and ridge system to the climber's right of Super Gully. Firm snow made for excellent cramponing.  I counted 10 different ways to walk uphill with crampons.

Looking down Super Gully from  over 12,000 feet, wondering if it will thaw. In the middle of a perfect weather window...high pressure, hight temps, no clouds...orographic lifting sometimes squeezes out just a bit more moisture from the atmosphere, enough to produce intermittent clouds near the summit, preventing my line from thawing. Dang it! No shame, I side stepped the first 400 feet or so, then skied in survival mode for a few hundered more feet. That first third of the gully took about half an hour and a few more nanometers of my hairline. The last two thirds  had  thawed and took me about one minute to ski during which  time my hairline actually advanced several nanometers!

False summit, the real summit is 1/3 of a mile farther but only 50 feet higher.

This is looker's left of Super Gully. I climbed to this point, about 11,000 feet, and waited for the surface to thaw, but it never did. Note water ice.

Mountains, desert, reservoir

Trail Head

Lost River Peak, April 2012

These shoes need to be a half size bigger. After showering in these shoes I wore them as long as i could. Then, to avoid shrinkage...

Actually, its still skiing season. I headed back up towards Leatherman Pass and made my way up the north ridge of that peak. At some point I was stopped by steep snow covered rocks. To glisse the face just east of the ridge seemed like the best option (first photo). Two or three nice couloirs were draped down the face. Ankle deep powder at 45 degrees for about 1,500 feet took me to a horizon line which, nicely, turned out to not be death cliffs...mearly a rollover of a few degrees which led quickly to lower angle slopes and then the floor of the basin (photo with sick tracks).

As an after thought, I figured I'd go around and try to summit via the west face. I made it a few hundered feet closer, but was stopped by exhaustion. I then skied one of the biggest, best corn runs of my life, but was too waxed to fully enjoy the ride.

LRR heating up

The wetter snow of spring is apparently what it takes to stick to Lost River Range. A few good freeze/thaws has ensured that the snow will not blow away. Finally, endless scree has been transformed to a cruiser skin track.

I headed up sawmill gulch which, if you have an ATV, can be followed with some difficulty pert near the pass between the two named peaks in the photo. I grew up in the suburbs, so my vehicle only made it about a mile past where this photo was taken.

April fools day...after an hour of hiking and two hours of skinning I discovered that I had inadvertantly brought more than the usual 1.5 litres of water. Somehow I had four litres!

As sometimes happens, I forgot my camera (ipod). The image I most regrett not having is one of the titanic leatherman, splitting sawmill gulch with its perfect equillateral triangle burning white. Pretty much looked like K2 from that aspect. From there I headed climbers left toward the unnamed summit on the photo's left (with green arrow). This pittance of a summit tops out at only 11,000 ft. The looker's right couloir off the summit went well. Warm weather the week prior gave rise to several point releases, but no fracturing. On this day everything was frozen solid and covered in an inch of fresh...and no wind! After negotiating rocks and avi debris the chute turned into a low angle half pipe full of ankle deep pow that extended well below tree line. This run had it all: steeps, tech, rocks, ice, vert, pow, location, access! 2,300 feet.

nice little 1,000 foot stash. I skied laps on this after 15 inches of dense snow had fallen in the absence of wind. I returned the next day (picture) to find the slope rendered useless by the night's gale.

Chemistry tricks...Slow precipitation of lead iodide produces gold! The flourence flask shows the positive result of a Tollen's test, pure silver precipitate lining the vessel.

Cut throat killa'! 18" spawning female. Lived to spawn.

This specimin had an unusually large head and small right arm

Latest route on Dickey Peak.

I managed to reach the false summit. The run turned out to be much steeper than I thought, yikes! The dagger mounted on my ski pole for fending off mountain lions doubles as a self arrest tool in situations like this. No sign of avalanches, nonetheless I skied close to the rock/snow line on the uphill side of the gully. Being solo means that most (?!) of the routes I've skied this year have been chosen specifically because they present this option.

The last few weeks of snow and cloud cover have really saved the spring ski season in the LRR, still pretty slim though. In contrast, on the other side of the valley, Smiley Mountain Snotel site reported over 8 inches of SWE in about 10 days, more than doubling the snow pack!!

more golden granite!

On your left is the shaded norwand. The circled spire I have, in jest, dubbed the Central Pillar of Mackay (climbers might get the reference to the famed French pinacle). Indisdinguishable in this Ipod photo are the 3 or 4 continuous crack systems that lead to the top of the pinnacle, about 400 feet I think.

On your right is Cerro Mackay, this unuasually dry winter has allowed the notorious final rime pitch to melt away!

All puns aside, this is world class granite at 10,000 feet. After finding nothing but a lifetime of shale and limestone in these mountains, stumbling upon this granite is like an alchemists dream come true.

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