Right Fork

Took a trip up Right Fork with Mike today. A lot of walking for not a lot of turns, but it was beautiful and well worth the time. Our original destination was in Seitz Canyon, but we got word from the heli-guys that they'd hit the line we were going for and, well, that would have been a lot of walking for unexpected moguls. It was very, very cool of them to give us a shout.

Dawn broke on the standard Right Fork bushwhack. There's an old, unmaintained trail up climbers right in that canyon. My husband and the other ice climbers used to keep it brushed out, and it's fairly popular with snowshoers and so it's findable for the most part - at least in daylight. Miserable travel in a few spots, but pretty.

We got to the bench in reasonable time, considering the bushwhack, but it appeared that we'd missed the window for my original objective by a few days. The out on Gilbert was bony and full of moats and breakable crust. Un-fun. We took a pass.

The heli had been up there over the weekend and there were a lot of tracks, but even so it looked like fun could be found in these chutes. It was.

Once we got above about 9400' the snow got pretty nice. Creamy, sun-effected powder. Made for nice skinning and a very mellow climb.

The view down Right Fork.

Lake Peak, Wines Peak, and some of the Ruby Crest Trail route.

The first several hundred feet skied beautifully, and those chutes were short but tasty. There was some nice untracked in there, and some big marshmallow humps downhill.

Unfortunately, once we got below 9400' we were back into the crap snow for a mile-plus of down. We got some bonus turns once we got down to the bench, though. It had turned to sweet corn at that point.

And - if any reminder was needed that this, indeed, spring skiing...

All in all, an excellent day - even though I'm going to get to practice my p-tex skills before I take the Gotbacks out again. At least now I know what they're made of... all the way to the inside...

The thin line between corn and mank

It's corn season here in the Rubies.  There is still cold snow in protected north aspects, but the big east-facing lines are good corn skiing for those willing to drag their asses out of bed well before the crack of dawn - and who can move quickly enough to wrap things up before it gets hot enough for wet slides.

I, of course, got started too late this AM and got to enjoy a couple thousand feet of mank as a reward for making a couple of phone calls before heading up to ski.  In reality, I should have been up on the ridge at 9 - 9:30.  I made it up by 10:45... hell, I wasn't skinning until I should have been up on top.  Silly me.  It was still a beautiful day out, though, as well as good exercise.  Who can complain?

The Lamoille Canyon Road is melting out by the day.  This morning I was able to park my truck and snowmobile trailer at the pullout right below the turnoff to Scout Camp. Yesterday I only made it to the first pullout at the mouth of the canyon.  People will be able to park a truck and trailer at Pete's Corner in the next day or two.

Here are a few more photos of beautiful Lamoille Canyon.  Just because.  Some nice tours recently.

Ran into a couple of kids who'd snowboarded Terminal Cancer this morning.  Some yo-yo had gone up there recently... and sideslipped the whole way down.  Please, if you can't ski it find somewhere else to go.  There are a lot of options here, and honestly a lot better skiing. These kids had done a lot of driving and a lot of hiking to get to a chute full of scraped-off snow.

Straight Shots

While I take a brief pause in my BC explorations for some inbounds turns, enjoy this:

 %&!@# Glomming

 Andrew McLean's blog is awesome, and he's again posted up some great info for those of us who like to hike for turns.