Results 1 to 25 of 41
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04-17-2010, 01:14 PM #1
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.
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04-17-2010, 01:15 PM #2
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
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04-17-2010, 01:21 PM #3
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
More stoke, less shit.
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04-17-2010, 01:23 PM #4
Happy pants
The DoubleHaul? You guys know how to live, you can't have a bad trip when that IPA is involved.
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04-17-2010, 01:24 PM #5
Holy shit that pillow line looks unbelievably fucking amazing
I gots the jacket with the blue fox fur
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04-17-2010, 02:04 PM #6
best TR i've seen in a long time, from content to pictures. so jealous right now.
Talking shit about a pretty sunset.
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04-17-2010, 02:11 PM #7
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...
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04-17-2010, 02:49 PM #8
^^^^^^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
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04-17-2010, 02:54 PM #9
So much many pillows. Want.
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04-17-2010, 04:53 PM #10
well that did not suck.
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04-17-2010, 04:57 PM #11
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.
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04-17-2010, 10:53 PM #12
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
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04-17-2010, 11:00 PM #13
damn those lines make me happy in the pants
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04-17-2010, 11:08 PM #14
Wow!~! mWay to go, that looked way fun.
G'night gotta go sleep so I can ride the melted gnar here in th' morning.
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04-18-2010, 11:02 AM #15
that looks amazing
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04-18-2010, 11:06 AM #16
Nice work Jim. Your AK point and shoot photos were amazing, now with your DSLR you are killing it. Good eye, great trip.
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04-18-2010, 11:15 AM #17
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
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04-18-2010, 12:26 PM #18
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
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04-18-2010, 01:24 PM #19
gooooooooood
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04-18-2010, 01:31 PM #20
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04-18-2010, 02:15 PM #21Just living the dream...
- Join Date
- Feb 2010
- Location
- The Flat Middle West
- Posts
- 564
Sick pictures. Those pillow lines look amazing!
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04-18-2010, 02:35 PM #22
yea sick! one of the better TR's in a while.
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04-18-2010, 03:10 PM #23
Those pillows make me very jealous. Amazing stoke! Nice work!
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04-18-2010, 04:25 PM #24
Gnarwhale - delivering once again! Thanks.
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04-19-2010, 08:23 AM #25
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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