Day 5 and I still haven't climbed Iconoclast or skied off its south face!
Grrrrrr ... and visibility is looking pretty potty today. Oh well, today is
the day to look for some air. We join up with the guys who don't like keeping
their skis on the ground and head off skiers right of the Wizard Gullies to
look for some fun in Lee's Trees. It's not too long before there's air to
hit. Dave, Alastair, Pete and Vince have been checking out some of Sorceror's
fabled pillow lines all week and finding soft landings.
Alastair
goes for it
Vince slaying
powder
Off to Swiss Col again with another abortive attempt to get on the Lower Iconoclast
Glacier and take a look around. Visibility is patchy but not a total whiteout.
We amuse ourselves by watching the other group jello-wrestle as they navigate
their way to Ventego Glacier and the west shores of Ventego Lake. Shortly it's
time to drop in - woooohoooo .... amazing snow down to the Valley of Green Giants
and the lower plateau.
Return to
Swiss Col - Iconoclast glacier whiteout again .... booohooo
DeeDee cooks
up some mean powder
\
Pete looking
for rocks below the surface
Tracks down
to the Valley of the Green Giants - now why didn't we go up and do this again?
We've been mainly skiing above treeline where the buried PWKL (surface hoar
from 2 weeks ago buried below 90 - 120 cms of soft snow) has been dispersed
by winds. All the tree line runs we've skied have been open glades, were north-facing
and haven't showed any signs of the buried SH. This time we're heading over
to E facing steeps down to Ventego Creek and into new territory. Again some
buried SH but no reaction of this layer to cuts, compression tests or truncated
RBs. So it's time to ski something aggressive. Seven Chute is a 350m/1000 ft
shot down a natural pipeline that's wind-loaded.
I volunteer to go first and rationalizing that it's safer to go fast down windloaded
chutes, I let herr rip. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
What a rush. Who says big blue noodles don't go fast!
Seven Chute
and Sharon slaying it
Back to the lodge, we don't take the regular route but follow MB a skintrack that
I will call "Gateway to Gnarnia". At first I wanted to call it SteeperThenHell
(for reasons obvious in the below pictures) but after seeing the pillow lines
in this untouched area, what other name could it have then Gnarnia? One thing
I don't get ... the group from last week had poor visibility so must have skied
the trees. How could they possibly have left this blessed gift from the Almighty
untouched?
Gnarnia
and MB's Gateway to Gnarnia - top picture ~ Peter Golden
Ours not to question why, ours but to do or die, into the pillows of fluff hucked
the five numbuts (Alastair, Dave, Jeremy, Lee, Pete).
Pete in
pillows ~ photo Dave Fullerton
Jeremy in
the air
Glorious glorious untouched powder fields and ego-boosting pillow drops. Topped
off by skin tracks with vertical side drops that made your balls twitch in fear.
What a great day.
Pete in his natural environment dropping into the untouched
powder field
Jeremy not
in his natural environment - "holy s&^t - who put this skintrack in?"
~photo Dave Fullerton
Day 5 map
Day 5 profile
- missing Lee's Trees added lap (~330m ascent)
|| Day
1 - Feb 24 - Heinous Traverse - Wizard Gullies - Moraine Run ||
|| Day 2 - Feb 25 - Sorcerer
Lodge - Nordic Glacier (West Russian Col) - Black Russian Col - Critical Thursday
||
|| Day 3- Feb 26 - Sorcerer
Lodge - Wizard Gullies - Swiss Col - Ventego Lake - Swiss Bowl - Wizard Gullies
||
|| Day 4- Feb 27 - Sorcerer
Lodge - Nordic Glacier (Broadway) - Nordic West - Traverse of the Angels - Black
Russian col - Critical Thursday ||
|| Day 5- Feb 28 - Lee's
Trees - Swiss Col - Valley of the Green Giants - 7 Chute - Lee's Trees ||
|| Day 6 - Mar 1 - Sorcerer
Lodge - Nordic Glacier (White Russian Col) - Little Matterhorn Glacier - Perfect
Pass - Lower Alder Ridge (Woozels) ||
|| Day 7 - Mar 2 - Sorcerer
Lodge - Nordic Glacier (Broadway) - Khumbu - Escargot Glacier - Nordic Glacier
(White Russian Col) - Little Matterhorn Glacier - Melanoma Bowl - LM Glacier
- Perfect Pass - Perfect Glacier - Alder Ridge (Heffalumps and Woozel)
|| Sorcerer Lodge - assorted
air and crashes ||
