...try, try again.
It was about a third of the way through our tour, just after the crux of the skin up, a wide open, albeit short, 30 degree above tree line slope, that Uncle Vee remarked, looking up the long ridge to the summit, 'Well, it's just a good ol' fashioned Chris Miller tour.' He couldn't have put it better.
The tour was put together in a sneaky fashion. PhD and Sarah had come up fresh and excited to ski on Saturday night and with Vee passed out from the days exertions, Chris sold PhD on a second attempt at Shallow Mountain. Sarah, preparing for her first tour out with us, didn't know what she was getting into.
The plan was the same as Saturday with a closer look at the snow crux that had turned us back. Sitting at the bottom of it, 2 hours into the tour and a long way from the car, we decided that safely wasn't going to be the factor getting up it, but rather group energy levels and ambition. Lucky for us, everyone passed on both counts and we put an excited Chris on the front to break trail.
From there, it was a short order (relatively) to get to the top where we enjoyed a windless lunch, loads of lenticular clouds, and spectacular views.
The skiing, many hundred feet of low-angle alpine, followed by another grand of sphincter-puckering steeps dropping into the south bowl, followed by more giggle-inducing rolly low-angle terrain-feature laden soft snow, made the slog worth it.
And then we remembered we had to get back, which was going to involve at least another 1500 vertical feet of skinning and two more runs down. It didn't matter. Besides, we could just follow our tracks up for a while...then traverse for a bit...and then ski down...then skin back up. No problem.
From the top of our last skin, with the mountain we had just climbed behind us, it was all smiles the whole way back down to the car.
Apres-ski was done Gooney-style. Beer, Doritios, and banana cream pie.
Yeah, those lenticular clouds Sunday were cool:
http://frontrangeriffraff.wordpress.com/2009/03/01/aliens-hover-over-arapahoe-basin-3/
Posted by: Rick | March 02, 2009 at 12:45 PM