excellent, thanks for sharing!
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excellent, thanks for sharing!
Lookin good Liz & Blaine!
Way to get it, girl!! God it's been gorgeous out there.
oh so beautiful
beautiful pics
i think im in love. looks badass!
Yeah, don't follow those tracks to the right... Sorry about that one. :rolleyes2 It was our first time up there too.
Dropped the NW Couloir New Years Day for an amazing start to the year. So happy to see people are still taking advantage of the sun shine and the almighty Shuksan.
Keep on killing it! And give me a call next time you plan something gnarly!
Spencerhutch! We actually didn't see your tracks at the top there but saw them on the face after the traverse. So you dropped too far right too eh? Did you hike out too or rap? Or boost!? I was actually pretty gripped at that point, the line seemed a lot more mellow after that. Such a sick line, in awesome snow!
Yeah we dropped to the right as well. Not quite as far as you guys though, maybe 200 ft, and called it a no go! The boot pack back up was a little puckering but nothing near blue ice!
The snow on the face was mediocre as well. When we hit it the snow was pretty wind affected and crusty, still nice if you stayed tucked into the rocks. Had some friends drop it on the 30th with powder from top to bottom, very envious. Either way it's an awesome run and I am damn happy to have finally got it!
Meh, looks okay.
Great stuff!
One of the best lines in America.
Wow! Bump for made props.
Sweet line! One of these days I'll still never ski it.
Out of curiosity, why are most/all parties ascending the White Salmon to ski down the NW Couloir? Seems like a lot of the route-finding oopsies could be avoided, not to mention not pulling a Hans Saari (RIP), by climbing up the thing before skiing down. Sure, it'd be a lot of bootpacking but that never seemed to stop Trevor and Eric, or the folks that I know that skied it back in the day.
One reason these days could be "we didn't climb up because we didn't know who was going to be coming down above us". I guess that wasn't really a problem 10 years ago.
Wow, sick and beautiful. Can I ski with you? You must be in desperate need of more dudes to shred with:biggrin:
Just imagining unstrapping above blue ice and exposure and then putting on crampons has me scared. Wow!
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@goingthedistance: No movie this time. My GoPro case is scratched.
@tonecapone: ALWAYS need more partners!
@hop: I don't really think most people who ascend the White Salmon ski the NW couloir. I think most of them probably try to get to the summit then ski back down the White Salmon. It's a great ski because it's the most direct line right back down to the drainage and it stares you right in the face from the resort, making it so alluring. We didn't boot up it because there was a perfect skin track in up the WS, also it was suppose to be pretty warm that day so we didn't want shit coming down on our heads. We did consider it though. Also, it's hard when you're on top of a blind rollover to know where to go. Nothing I read in any beta said not to go far skiers right or you'll get fucked. It might even fill in later on in the season, making it an acceptable entrance. You make mistakes in the mountains and you learn from them, I didn't think booting back out was that big of a deal. It was a better decision than airing out into the crux or sliding across blue ice with two axes...
Sorry, my wording might have been a bit confusing. What I meant was that most (or at least every party that I've heard from in the past few years) that ski the NWC ascend the WS and therefore get their conditions report from the top down instead of booting up the NWC and knowing exactly what they're in for and where to go. The "climb what you ski" approach to ski mountaineering definitely seems to work best (at least in theory, for me, in the comfort of my home) vs. the Hans Saari method of top-down conditions guesstimation.
Some people make mistakes and learn from them. Others die. Glad you're part of the former. Keep up the stoke!
BTW, you can probably thank Zack, Molly, Ben Price, and one of the Provos for that perfect skin track up the WS.
Wow, that was fantastic! Thanks so much.
Good times, great post. Way to get after it.
Sick.
You heading to Cham this winter?
I kinda wish it wasn't snowing 2 inches an hour when I went there for the first (and only) time this year, I would like to see those mountains!
Looks decent.
rad!!way to get after it
bumpitybump