As we enter into the meat of winter I have tired valiantly to network with some other local backcountry skiers to get out and play. A few weeks back I met up with a few guys and a gal and we had a fun day poking around behind one of the local ski areas. The snow was pretty poor as has been the case around here for a while but we had a nice day and got some exercise. Well a few days ago I got the call that the posse was heading out for another adventure if I wanted to join. I was pretty stoked and after getting approval from the master of the house and confirmed that I would be on-board.

We met up around 7:30 AM at a local eatery and combined vehicles for a longish drive up towards the Sawtooth Mountains. We knew it was going to be a bit of a haul but considering the way the snow pack has been looking we weren't too concerned about making sure we got off the snow before it started warming up. We passed miles of nicely groomed cross country trails which made me very jealous and looking forward to living some where with snow on the ground for a lot of the year. It was a beautiful sunny day so the views were spectacular.

The hike in was through a little creek drainage that has some forest service roads weaving around it. The grind up the first pitch was pretty tough as the lower elevation was warm and a little sloppy. We fought with icing on our climbing skins for much of the day. I have been improvising with some older skins that don't fit my skis very well and need to break down and invest in a new pair. I'm not sure how long my new ski partners are going to keep waiting on me! We had about 4,000 vertical feet of an ascent in mind which took us about three hours. The climb followed a ridge line that split two big high alpine bowls, one a southeastern aspect and the other a northwestern. The northern aspect had built a pretty nice sized cornice indicative of the heavy winds that have been pounding the higher mountains. We took our skins off at the cornice line and strapped our skis onto our pack to finish the climb.

The push up the ridge got pretty steep in places and if I were to do this one again would certainly bring crampons and an ice axe. I'm a bit more of a wimp than my partners as they made fast time and didn't seem as concerned about the exposure. I also failed to eat enough on the first part of the climb and got some muscle cramping as we approached the top. Luckily a peanut butter and jelly sandwich quieted the cramps considerably, and I was able to enjoy the turns on the way down. We popped over an adjacent ridge on the summit platform and descended down the east face. The top was nice and soft and some of the route had been sheltered by a ridge that left powder conditions. We all had a lot of fun carving up the chutes below. A tricky cliff band forced us all to use some survival skiing techniques, but overall the route finding wasn't too difficult. A little creek lead us back to the road where I hitchhiked back up and got the car. All in all I think it took us between six and seven hours to complete the tour. It was an incredible day for me! I'm going to try and get my hands on some of the photos the other skiers took, and I'll post them if I do.