Thread: TR- Rogers Pass: Swiss Couloir -Jan 3 2013

TR- Rogers Pass: Swiss Couloir -Jan 3 2013

Links to Parts 1 & 2 Here:
Part 1 - Asulkan Valley & Forever Young Couloir
Part 2 - Ross Couloir

I took a couple of off days to sort through my car situation which AngryBeard alluded to in Part 2. Something pretty catastrophic blew in the engine, and my old Forester is no more. Many thanks to the folks who responded to my thread over in Tech Talk on the subject. I ended up selling it for about the cost of a new set of dynafits...

We did a few days of hitchiking to the pass before Crazyhorse rolled into town on the 2nd to bail us out of our carless predicament. Crazyhorse was supposed to be the 4th person on the team for the entire trip, but was forced to bail due to catching Malaria while in Africa in December. He was feeling well enough for some skiing after New Years, so we were glad to have him aboard...

Day 1:

With negligible new precipitation and a pretty bomber snowpack, we figured getting something interesting was in order. Our goal for the day was to go bag something in the Swiss Peaks area. There were a few write-ups online, and I'd grabbed the shot below from over on Young's Peak on the 30th.


Swiss Peaks shot from Young's Peak with markup, our run for the day in red. With the exception of the Rogers Headwall Run and the main Swiss Couloir, we couldn't find names for the other runs, so these are colloquially what I came up with:
1. Rogers Headwall 2. Swiss Couloir West 3. Swiss Couloir Main 4. Swiss Couloir East 5. Swiss-Truda

We got started from the Hermit Path trailhead around 0745. As we ascended we got this great view of the sun rising past Mt. McDonald

Sunrise on Mt. McDonald


Some sweet looking pillow lines in the Hermit slidepath area, but we're here on a mission...


Approaching the Lizard Morraine, with Swiss Peaks partially obscured on the left.

Remember how I said we were on a mission, I couldn't resist asking AngryBeard for a few skiing shots with the great vis... Regrettably I'm finding my lens is really soft with the apreture wide open, and I'm going to be more conscious of closing the aperture a bit as long as I can maintain decent shutter speed/iso.




Alright, back to the mission... As we moved past the Lizard Morraine onto the Swiss Glacier, the different lines options became visible. The main Swiss couloir looked good, but the east/west variations looked pretty boney.


Hummus approaching the Swiss Couloir


AngryBeard and CrazyHorse crossing the Swiss Glacier


The view from the bottom of the couloir.

The snow in the couloir was... questionable. Breakable crust onto of relatively consolidated snow. We were definitely doing this to bag a line rather than for the the epic skiing. When you could do the alpine crawl on top of the crust it was reasonably fast moving, but there were substantial sections of wallowing up to your thighs as well.


AngryBeard near the bottom


CrazyHorse


AngryBeard and Hummus approachign the crux. Low 50s according to AngryBeart's slopemeter through this section...


Hmm... The crux does seem kind of narrow. How long are my skiis again? This could get interesting.

We ended up calling the ascent about 20m below the top of the chute. After the crux the snowpack was quite thin and was basically just facets over rock. We dug a tiny launchpad and I dropped in. One jump turn later I was at the top of the crux, and turns out it was about 195 cm wide. Why did I bring my Lhasas up here? Sidestepping for me I guess...

Below the crux it was still kind of boney, but I was able to throw in a few jumpturns on the steeper section. Once it opened up there were a few pockets of wind deposited snow. Once I was out I grabbed some shots of the others descending.


CrazyHorse going through the Crux

Pretty much everyone had to sidestep the crux. It started out being as wide as my skis, and progressively erroded until as Hummus put it 'I now know I can ski 50 degree rock slopes'. Guess it was a good call to send the bigger skis first.

CrazyHorse coming down


AngryBeard with the line above him.


Hummus, with the now thoroughly destroyed crux a bit above him.


Hummus on the Apron


Hummus at the bottom/ Go Pro advertisement


The team with the line in the background.


Leaving our line with some beautiful alpenglow in the background.

oh so sweet

That was a fucking gnarly TR. Scale is unbelievable.

You waited a year to post that?
Nice shots but I wonder about your call on the wide open aperture. Are you sure it's not a focusing issue? The foreground in those two look more in focus than the subject.

Bringin back the classic TR, way to get after it.

Originally Posted by cocavaak

You waited a year to post that?

Brain hasn't quite adjusted to 2013 yet. Fixed.

fuck yea! been digging all the roger's pass stoke you've been posting, looks like a great trip

Been there a couple times in the summer; great place; great TR. Awesome photos!

See you lazy fucks! THis is how to milk a high pressure in the Pass. Well done guys

i have never skied that stupid couloir in good snow. the only time it looked like it'd be good i was terrified of going near it. South facing lines and all that kind of stuff.

I'm sure its been skied in chest deep blower but not by me

love the swiss glacier pic

Noice!

789

Nice!!!!

Another great TR! This forum is starting to redeem itself.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the comments folks

Originally Posted by cocavaak

Nice shots but I wonder about your call on the wide open aperture. Are you sure it's not a focusing issue? The foreground in those two look more in focus than the subject.

It's possible. I'm a bit of a photo newb having only really starting getting into 4 months ago with a move from a P &S up to DSLR. For that shot I had the aperture wide open and had set the AF to use only the center point of the grid in AI servo mode. I'm using an older 24-105 f3.5-4.5 USM. I've found that lens is pretty consistently soft if I have the aperture wide open.

Maybe the AF wasn't quite on target when I took the shot. I suppose I could have pre-focused the shot by using back button focus (something I've been dabbling with, but haven't converted to fully) on the rocks and just hit the shutter when the skier was in the center of the frame. Thoughts?

And since I'm bumping this back up to the front page, I guess I'll share some stoke from Jan. 4, our last day in the pass where we checked out some of the pillow lines.


AngryBeard




Hummus


CrazyHorse contemplates his line...


CrazyHorse carries quite a lot of speed into this considering the very modest amount of snow.


CrazyHorse realizing he might have misjudged the landing....


Explosion


Explosion (continued)