So today I went skiing by myself since everyone else has lame ass class or work or something. We got 5 inches on Saturday and 12 on Monday Night/Tuesday Morning, so there was a fair amount of snow. Clear bluebird skies. Absolutely gorgeous. So I decided to take a warm up run by taking Seventh Heaven and dropping in somewhere along cowboy ridge. Untracked deep pow, somewhat set up from a day of rest, but goooood. I pretty much straightlined this narrow chute after seeing it had an opening at the bottom and came screaming out onto this pow field out of rocks and glades. If you've never done it, make that a priority for your life.
It was kinda depressingly short (only like 500 feet or so), so I moved to the backside of the hill. The trail map doesnt show it, but to get to the place I was, you have to hike up a gap in a ridge under some power lines. Usually, people drop in there, but I was hungry.
These were taken on a different day, but whatever.
Looking down from the perch that everyone usually drops in from. Below is the trail, and thats the run you need to haul ass on to get as far up the trail as you can before bootpacking.
Now, normally, theres tons of good lines through a moderately sloped bowl that only a few people know about. But I decided to fuck it and brave the waist deep snow and hike another 500 feet and somehow get on top of that really jagged and corniced ridge. It took three hikes interspaced with traverses to do it, but I finally got on top of the Roostercomb after what must have been two solid hours of work. Cutting trail sucks.
V.. (NS member) and I took these pictures of the area from below the line a month back. We dubbed it Imaginationland because it looked so dreamy... 2 mellow platforms divided by steep flutes, spines and cliffs. We could only dream when we took these. Today, that became a reality.
So yeah, popped my skis on a little ways down from the summit and sliced into my line. Virgin snow. Nobody has skied it this year, or any year to my knowledge (probably some telemarkers at some time, but I've never seen tracks ever). Bounced around off some pillows on the first steep section, then pointed it to get speed across the mellow section. Its all in the shade, but at the end of the mellow section, the sun was on it. Howling out of the line, I sped across the bright snow and launched off what I thought was a small roller. The ground just dropped away as I took off over this thing, I was going so fast. I took off in the sun - looking back at my solitary tracks when I was on the chair, there was my track, then the roller, then no track for at least 50 feet (I landed in shade, couldnt really see how long it was). The second steep section was insane, I've never skied spines like that. Did like two turns, then pointed it again and blasted out into another untracked bowl. When I finally met up with the cattrack loop near the bottom, I had skied 1500' of steep, fast, untracked snow. I was laughing uncontrollably when I was on the lift, sooooo much adrenaline and endorphins. It was so good I had to go back and do it again.
After the second time I felt completely worked. It was somehow 3:00 and I had ridden a chair only 4 times. I did some calm down park runs, got to swing around my Madens in a slushy pipe and practiced kangs and spread eagles off the jump line. I also got to talk to some cool old Austrian lady on the chair and saw an F-16 do a low altitude run through the mountains. Today was just.... awesome.
Oh, and I nearly died on the way home cause I was so tired, I chugged a Monster at a gas station and had to go back for another one on the drive home to keep awake. Haha, I'm going to be stoked on this for weeks.
