Bazinga!

A day of hard labor can turn a two hour hands-and-knees bushwack into a pleasant ten minute stroll.  This has really opened up some possibilities. The stock handle on the lopper only lasted one mountain man hour!

After a day prepping the trail and lots of rest I headed out to ski a line I've been looking at for a long time. This picture represents the last crux on the descent, marked by the lowest red arrow in my final photo. On the ascent I stayed climbers left in the wider passage which had melted out.

about 1/3 of the way up

At the middle red arrow, looking down. Uhh...?

At the middle red arrow, looking up.  Above this began sustained 50 degree firm snow, a joy to swing tools into!

At the top red arrow, I found this hidden 200 cm wide slot on the descent which allowed me to avoid the 15 foot WI 3 step which was the crux of the climbing on the way up (blue arrow). This WI crux came at the top of several hundred feet of 50 degree firm snow which I ascended on front points using two technical axes. For me, this was way more pushy than any part of the descent.

Bazinga! Descent marked by green dots. This photo was taken in mid winter when avi conditions where high. By the time things stabilize, there's not much snow left. The obvious big couloir off the summit was my objective, but its snow pack was too unconsolidated to climb. Contrary to its appearance from this angle, it is in fact a perfect 50 degree plum line. I attempted an alternative route to the summit but was stopped by steep wet rock. Clicking in here at 11,400 feet was pretty wild!   My camera stopped working mid descent, but who cares! The whole face is about 2,000 vertical feet and beneath this was another 1,000 feet of perfect corn! My stoke was so high that I skinned up canyon to summit Mount Breitenback, a 12,000+ foot giant. I was stopped when the snow pack began to refreeze forcing retreat. From there, it was 2,000 feet of non stop high speed 25 degree corn, awesome! (Ty, I stand corrected)

SW Aspect of Invisible mountain into Closed Canyon

Looking Westish. The top of Macaleb is in the upper right

2/3 up the ascent gully.

Start of descent gully. All of Mackay is visible in the valley. With the wind picking up and clouds forming, I passed on the summit in favor of skiing fine velvet over boiler plate.

Ascent marked in red, descent at green arrow
These routes lie between 8,500 and 11,000 feet on the South West Aspect of Invisible mountain. I had actually meant to ski the thin line leading into my ascent gully, oops!

The route as seen from town the day after I skied it. Overnight a spring storm had left a dusting and dropped temps back to below freezing soli. Pardon the low quality IPod photos.

Wired!

Dare to roast yer own! All aboard the tasting train!

The Fat Maiden

Matt Johnson behind the lens. Thanks for these awesome shots and for showing me this great zone! After opening up the first third of the run, I pulled over while Matt shredded the entire run continuously. I then glissed the rest of the run quickly, noting a peculiar sensation beneath my feet as I habitually cut out of a terrain trap at high speed near the bottom of the run. The crown was maybe 8-12 inches at best trending to only a few inches over the course of about 7 meters. The slab consisted of only soft new wind deposit, thus the lovely velvety massage feeling beneath my feet. 

pics from a few posts ago when it was really cold

Typical...my old digital camera popped up again after ducking out for a month or so. Here's what I found...six megapixels! This is from the trip when even time froze!

My new space station. 1.5 pounds, uses ski poles for support. This is the one where you can stand up and pee inside the tent! Lost river peak in the background. Can you spot the comic intrusion?

Frozen reservoir. The obvious S shaped channel on the left meets the river right at the dam. 

Just one more amazing line that I've been eyeing for about a year now, just waiting for the conditions to be right. I'm thinking skier's left off the unnamed 11,448' summit. Shadowed by 12,000 foot giants, this peak has little to offer the peak bagger. The glisse mountaineer, however, losses sleep over this 2,000 foot tall face, more rock than snow.

Looking north across Jones Creek from the north west shoulder of Lost River Peak.

skiing and fishin'



A little fishing and lots of skiing. Last Sunday I woke at 4 AM to climb and ski the 5,000 foot south west face of Mt Mcaleb. On the road in I was faced with the question of how much momentum a Tacoma needs to plow through a snow drift of X size and Y density. Luckily, a quantitative answer was not required. All I needed to know was "the more the better". Eventually, however, X and Y became insurmountable, leaving me to dig out with only my hands since I had forgotten my shovel. I quickly came up with a plan B.

Copper Basin is about 40 minutes from my house, and has a plowed access road for all the snomo homo sapiens. I drove to the end of the plowing where a makeshift lot held a few gas guzzlers and a lot of broken beer bottles. From there, I was able to spin laps on a 1,000 foot face just off the road.


A species of Tillapia caught on a dry fly from a warm spring





Meadow skipping just of the road in copper basin



Depth of Winter

So much stillness....just last weekend on Hidden Peak the same thing happened.  All the Powder Keg was as if a conch shell held to my ear...the salty surf in my vessels the only sound. I suppose really it was my balaclava acting as the conch shell, but the absence of wind made it seem super loud! Impossibly still...wind has always been my nemesis. A poor choice of nemesises, wind will always have its way. That day, however, not only was the wind absent, but an inversion bathed the highlands in the mid thirties.

That was last weekend. This weekend there was no inversion, but the stillness and full solar lured me on. At one point I looked back to see my last three breaths suspended, frozen, above the skin track. Seconds later they sublimated away...the only visual indication of passing time in this frozen windless vastness. Pine boughs hung heavy but did not sway, cornices perched but shed no spindrift. So cold...with even time frozen, I was free to do whatever I wanted, save for the avalanche, a grain in the hourglass that would crush me!

At 10,000 feet I set up my new Beta Mid. A 1.5 lb floorless tent for winter camping. You dig out the floor as deep as you want so in the middle of the night you can just stand up and pee! Awesome! I then scrambled up about 700 feet on 45 degree mixed ice/scree/snow (using full body contact and frozen moss/mud climbing techniques honed in Montana). I buckled down just in time to catch a steep scratchy descent in the alpenglow before heading back to the space station.

 In the desert in January, when the sun sets the temps drop about twenty Farenheits in minutes. This left me at a brisk negative fifteen as a starting point for the gradual cool down that would keep me company over night. It went like this: do crunches until failure. fall asleep mesmerized by the heat. dream pleasant dreams. dreams get darker and cold. dream of sun rising. wake up shivering. do crunches until failure.

My best strategery ever was placing my space station so the first solar rays would strike its flank. My station immediately gained 50 or so Farenheights, as water began to drip. I bailed having accomplished nothing toward my objective save setting up base camp and making it through a really cold night.

Quest up Bear Creek




More Breakfast of Yetis! Don't worry, there's vanilla ice cream in there too!

 

small peaks blocking the main objective at dawn

cool little shots that i passed on the way

1,800 vertical feet easy access , on the way to Bear Lake. (Mental Note)

healthcare puzzle



Finally, I arrive at "the Powder Keg" above Bear Lake. More like Scoured Keg! I skinned up the long south ridge of Hidden Mountain (Above rock face of mountain on right) and then glissed down the uneventfull north ridge.



Ram and Ewe guarding the summit!

Mr. McClure's camera on the Summit, after dispensing of the sheep.

The view from, well...

Looking down from the north ridge of Hidden Peak into the Powder Keg and then further down towards Bear Lake

Holy Crap! What's in there?!



Why am I single?



I first noticed this impressive north face last year from the vantage of the Lost River Range. A little research revealed it to be the Devil’s Bedstead East (as opposed to Devil’s Bedstead West). Pictures confirmed my suspicion that it would make a super classic ski decent. More recently I’ve learned that Chris Davenport et al included it in their new book 50 Classic Ski Descents of North America.  What do you think? 3,000+ feet

This picture was taken in June many years ago early in the morning. The obvious direct fall line off the summit will go this spring!

Easiest route to the summit. 3rd class in the summer. Avalanche death in the winter

The face as it appeared last weekend.

Devil's Bedstead West (not as cool). This mountain lies on the west side of Kane Creek, DBE is on the East side.

While approaching DBE, I passed through this avalanche path in disguise. The absence of low branches on the uphill sides of this trees is the sure sign.  Low snow pack  lacking instabilities made for a safe approach and awesome powder turns on the descent.

I left the trail head at noon, planning on a bivy around 10,000 feet near the North East Ridge. All went as planned on day one. Day two began with me learning all about how canister stoves don't work well when they're cold especially when you have the wrong fuel mixture. Then I learned that when my new 3 buckle ski boots are cold I can't get my feet into them. This was the coldest night of the year so far with lows reaching single digits 4,000 feet lower than me. I had no thermometer, but it was pretty stinkin' cold! I shoved everthing in my sleeping bag and went back to sleep. When I woke I promptly bailed. A few thousand feet of good powder turns in the avalanche forest pictured above was my consolation.

family cichlidae

Not quite enough snow to ski yet, so I traveled to an isolated high desert warm springs to collect specimins of the family cichlidae. I'm pretty sure (qualitative measure of probablility)  that this is the most diverse family of chordates. There are an estimated 2,000-3,000 species of cichlids with only about 1,300 classified. After failing with a casting net I was left with one option...as Jeremy Wade would say, "tackle up and get a line in the water!" I would guess that not many folks have cast flies to fish that are native to African lakes and South American jungles. Three different species from three seperate genuses were taken on nymphs and placed in my aquarium. A larger species of tillapia was taken on a dry fly as well as a nine inch goldfish.
         
Before leaving I sliced up one specimen and tried a little bait fishing (Jeremy Wade style). While I got nonstop action, my tackle was too big and I could not set the hook. Although, with polorized lenses I could clearly see at least six more species that had been roused from the deep by the live bait including the prized aquarium specimens that go by the common names of Jack Dempsey and Green Terror.

In this low quality video of my super stressed overcrowed tank, the Jack Dempsey and albino Oscar (Albino Diablo, Ghost Faced Killa's successor) came from the pet store. All the others are "wild".

Climb your local Norwand today!

The worst fire season in my experience has left me unfit and inflammed, but all that just ended. I packed up my ice gear and headed for the land of ogres and giants. At the trail head I drank a strong concoction prepared by extracting a certain "bean" with hot water. Cut with heavy wipping cream, this has been my favorite performance enhancer for over a decade now!

This face holds ice year round...some white glacial ice and several couloirs of black ice. I chose a route that I thought would allow the option of climbing ice or rock. I was treated to an alpine mess of moderate snow, WI III, and snowy class 3 rock with 4th class steps. Front pointing up a 45 degree 20 foot step of black ice with plenty of exposure proved to be the mental crux. This old ice gear works pretty good! Two hours and about 1,200 feet higher I was stopped by difficulties. I sat on a small ledge dumbfounded not only at the prospect of downclimbing the route, but also finding my way out the trailless canyon in the dark (I had optimistically planned on summiting in the late afternoon sun and walking down the standard trail in the dark). After accepting my situation I stood up only to see my cell phone fall from my pocked and accelerate seemingly without resistance. It hit a small ramp and cought hundreds of feet of air after which it landed on more steep snow and just kept on going. I sat back down...hmm. Well I suppose my cell phone had inproper gear and poor route finding skills. Heck! Two hours later I was  back on the frozen scree of the cirque floor. Three hours later I was doing steam crossings and bushwackings in the dark. My weary mind, now free from ogres and giants, pondered local extraterestrial lore such as cattle mutalations and strange men in bussiness suits making mountain traverses on foot in the winter. Then there's all the wolf stories...devil wolves 'round these parts. They get big as horses from eating cattle. Finally, forest gave way to sage and stars.Yada Yada...then, safe in my truck, I got temporarily lost on the dirt roads driving home. The Norwand? Unclimbable!



Access to the upper cirque neccessitated passage through this man-sized invagination in the rock!



View from my highpoint..notice boot tracks below





good taste of the face




Wintry Norwand contrasts with sage desert



North Face Mount Borah. Mid October 2012

Summa twenny twelve

Not much photodocumentation this summer, but here it is. the consistantly cold rivers in glacier country aren't known to grow big trout...infact a "guide" told me there aren't many over 18".  Here's two of them, although the photographer failed. The second one was REALLY big.

After meeting with the sister and brother in law and catching a few fish, I spent four days hermiting and geeking out by collecting mineral samples between glacier and bozeman.

Sun sets early into the smoke in Idaho

These things grow on trees!