cross training

To maximize endurance and power its best to do some form of cross traing. While remaining completely focused on ski mountaineering, i've challenged my strength, reflexes and mental fortitude against the mighty trout (and female homo sapiens)...catch and release only! For the past few weeks I've relocated fish terrorism headquarters to Montana. When you're on the Pro Leisure Tour, this stuff is serious!

Borah

My first attempt at Borah ended at the base of chicken out ridge because I had no crampons. Attempt two ended at the snowbridge which looked horifying due to newly drifted snow. The above picture represents my high point of try number three. While stopped by the NE ridge, I did get a really good look at the north face...not that steep.

Try number three also had the benefit of sick corn turns from the 12,000 ridge. I was duanted by the approach up "trailless" Rockcreek, but in retrospect it might be the easiest three miles in the Lost River Range thanks to the excellent description available on summitpost by reboyles.

For try number 4 I chose a different route, a West Face snow couloir, and opted for a planned bivy. Ariving at my bivy spot, I eyed my route and knew it would go!

Here it is, up the blue dots to the summit, ski back down the blue dots to the big rock traverse. Then traverse to the green dots and ski the snowbridge couloir! Awsome bivy spot, eh?

Arriving at the summit at 11:00 I expected to ski immediately, however, for the first trime ever, a forcasted mostly sunny day in the Big Lost River Valley turned mostly cloudy forcing me to shiver in fetal position on my pack behind this windblock for 2 hours waiting for the snow to soften. This always happens to me, heck!

Me with some of the trash I found on the summit

Looking back at the summit from near the top of the snowbridge showing the line I skied off the summit. Yes, the steep line on the left is pretty high on my list. I had perfect corn off the summit in a window of sunshine. The snowbridge coulie also had perfect corn and was spiced up by many prodruding rock fins, my favorite!

Looking South from the summit. The green arrow shows my high point and ski descent from last month on Leatherman.

Next year, a bigger snowpack will allow a more thorough exploration of these mountains.

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!