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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Two Thousand Leagues
    Posts
    1,014

    Smile TR: Mountain Animals Return to Happyland

    This is Happyland.

    Sixteen months ago the Mountain Animals spent a week [ame="https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148329"] here[/ame] skiing fabulously deep snow. When we skied these pillows last year someone started calling the zone "pillow fight" but I like "Happyland," the name the TGR crew came up with earlier this winter, too.



    Despite being light and fluffy, the snow in Interior BC sticks to near-vertical surfaces. If this rack were here in Utah the topsheets would be bare.


    But, this isnt Utah and so the snow defies gravity and makes the cliffbands look like they're made from Stay Puft products.


    Remember that feeling when you were ten and as you reach the last step on the top of the high-dive you notice how far above the pool you are? And how suddenly the decision to climb up the ladder in the first place seems like it was a bad one?


    The lines are technical and with so many horizon lines it’s hard to be sure you’re standing on top of what you’d been eyeing from below. Convincing yourself you weren’t going to be swallowed by a deep snow moat or accidentally launch fifty feet to flat were mental hangups for all of us.


    Then, after a few minutes of wrestling with those “on top of the high-dive” thoughts there comes a time when you stop thinking and do it.






    And it is glorious.




    The skiing on our first day at the hut was marginal. It hadn’t snowed for a week and long spring days had baked the surface. But that night clouds rolled in and on Day 2 it dumped all day then all night.


    Eat your heart out, Jordan Manley


    Tag-teaming trees


    The lady-friend gettin’ hers


    Mini-golf sequence






    ...with a satified look-back out the bottom


    Unfortunately, stability during and after the storm was marginal above treeline. We could hear avalanches more often than we could see them and I just happened to be taking a photo of the fresh crown lines when this one came down. When the clouds lifted we could see that this avalanche began at the top of the same couloir that the Deeper guys rode during their week here.


    During forays onto the glaciers we kept our angles low, which isn’t hard to do around this hut. In fact, low angle glacier skipping is what the hut's known for.






    Dramatic light in a valley a few miles from the hut




    First tracks OB. Swift. Noisy. Deep.


    Then time for the daily dose


    R.Strong down the stairs…


    …And out onto the apron, looking highly disappointed.


    Seth dropped in for a beer…


    …A beer that we’d smuggled from MT to BC on the drive north. Never have I felt less likely to be searched than crossing the border in a BMW with three cute, athletic women.


    Afternoon cocktails led to sunset meadowskipping above the hut


    And whipped cream for breakfast is the new homeopathic for hangovers


    We explored areas further from the hut, but sadly blue sky had baked the left half of the gully.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Two Thousand Leagues
    Posts
    1,014
    And put in some good ol’ steep zig zags to counteract all the flat-heel uphilling we’d been doing.


    Which got us to some north-facing goods, still un-manked by sun.




    Though the spring sun was quick to crustify the snow, the views didn’t suck.




    We pushed high onto the glaciers, hoping for a window of good light


    And saw lots of spindrift avalanches on the way


    And wrapped up the trip with another lap on Happyland




    After which I signed one, skinned up and sent


    And dedicated a page to the place in the chalet guest book


    Mountain Animals

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    JH/AK/Los Andes
    Posts
    2,678
    Nice work!!
    "The idea wasnt for me, that I would be the only one that would ever do this. My idea was that everybody should be doing this. At the time nobody was, but this was something thats too much fun to pass up." -Briggs
    Quote Originally Posted by LeeLau View Post
    Wear your climbing harness. Attach a big anodized locker to your belay loop so its in prime position to hit your nuts. Double russian Ti icescrews on your side loops positioned for maximal anal rape when you sit down. Then everyone will know your radness
    More stoke, less shit.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    MiZZZZoula
    Posts
    3,145
    Happy pants

    The DoubleHaul? You guys know how to live, you can't have a bad trip when that IPA is involved.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Posts
    1,093
    Holy shit that pillow line looks unbelievably fucking amazing
    I gots the jacket with the blue fox fur

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Posts
    559
    best TR i've seen in a long time, from content to pictures. so jealous right now.
    Talking shit about a pretty sunset.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Two Thousand Leagues
    Posts
    1,014
    Quote Originally Posted by FreakofSnow View Post
    The DoubleHaul? You guys know how to live, you can't have a bad trip when that IPA is involved.
    Yeah, I've been a long-time fan of Kettle house, even though they confiscated my fake ID way back in the day. I'm also a fan of micro's in cans. I had a pretty nice canned mico rotation between the Cold Smoke, Double Haul and B.S. Trout Slayers. Now if only they'd start distributing Fresh Bongwater to UT...

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Posts
    3,173
    ^^^^^^Word, that stuff goes with me for every bike ride. Gonna start bringing some Cold Smoke for spring tours.
    "The skis just popped me up out of the snow and I went screaming down the hill on a high better than any heroin junkie." She Ra

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Location
    Seattle/Snowbird
    Posts
    1,007
    So much many pillows. Want.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    West Shore
    Posts
    2,377
    well that did not suck.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    grapes and grapes
    Posts
    3,331


    Do you see the smiling face in this photo at the top!?!? LO-muthafuckin'-LZZZZ

    It might just be the acid I'm on now, usually is, whatevs.
    "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. The winds will blow their freshness into you, and the storms, their energy. Your cares and tensions will drop away like the leaves of Autumn." --John Muir

    "welcome to the hacienda, asshole." --s.p.c.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Park City
    Posts
    316
    wow those pillows look amazing
    "Officially known as Highway U-210, more commonly known as Little Cottonwood Canyon and unofficially acknowledged as the epicenter of the greatest snow on earth." Andrew McLean

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    CO
    Posts
    623
    damn those lines make me happy in the pants

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Posts
    699
    Wow!~! mWay to go, that looked way fun.
    G'night gotta go sleep so I can ride the melted gnar here in th' morning.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Up North
    Posts
    1,017
    that looks amazing

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Was UT, AK, now MT
    Posts
    13,453
    Nice work Jim. Your AK point and shoot photos were amazing, now with your DSLR you are killing it. Good eye, great trip.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Ventura Highway in the Sunshine
    Posts
    22,429
    FKNA, those are some amazing pillow lines. It is not like stand on top of the high dive at your local pool, more like stand on top of the 10 meter platform looking at a tub of water

    I agree it is a constitutional right for Americans to be assholes...its just too bad that so many take the opportunity...
    iscariot

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    in front of a range
    Posts
    780
    And it is Glorious!

    Fuuuuuuck Ya! My palms are sweaty just looking at those pillows...
    the kids are all wasted on pot listening to heavy metal

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Van City
    Posts
    55
    gooooooooood

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Couloirfornia
    Posts
    8,871
    Sooo good.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ernest_Hemingway View Post
    I realize there is not much hope for a bullfighting forum. I understand that most of you would prefer to discuss the ingredients of jacket fabrics than the ingredients of a brave man. I know nothing of the former. But the latter is made of courage, and skill, and grace in the presence of the possibility of death. If someone could make a jacket of those three things it would no doubt be the most popular and prized item in all of your closets.

  21. #21
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    The Flat Middle West
    Posts
    564
    Sick pictures. Those pillow lines look amazing!

  22. #22
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    das heights
    Posts
    2,542
    yea sick! one of the better TR's in a while.

  23. #23
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Colorado Cartel HQ
    Posts
    15,932
    Those pillows make me very jealous. Amazing stoke! Nice work!

  24. #24
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    NorCal
    Posts
    2,573
    Gnarwhale - delivering once again! Thanks.

  25. #25
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Mid-Atlantic
    Posts
    1,139
    Super strong work - great pictures and one of the best TRs I've seen this year. Thanks for posting that up.
    Before big games I shoot Rabies, it gives me the edge I need and it’s undetectable. Only idiot losers do steroids anymore...

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