In the land of AK it is all about big open face skiing and AK spine shredding! However being a colorado boy I am addicted to couloir skiing! There is just something about it; booting straight up a gully that has 30 foot walls around you, huffing and puffing, it makes you feel so small! HANDS DOWN, COULOIRS ARE TERRAIN TRAPS, there is a great avi risk when you are skiing or climbing one, however if you can plan the snow right you can have a low risk high reward outcome. With all that being said we had a weather window this weekend with stable snow so we went hard on the pass!
First cooly up was the first cooly I have skied in AK and it was addicting. I have never booted up anything with such solid snow. In colorado when you boot up a cooly normally there is a lot of post holing on scary snow or you are climbing ice to time the corn skiing on the way down. This was miranda's 21st b-day shred and she picked it and killed it! Bomber snow, with a few inches of fresh, made the 45%, 2,000 vertical foot shoot ski amazing!
Second cooly was just like the first one we did, bomber snow and a great shred. We got Big Rich to come along with us for his first steep technical line. This might have been a little much for him because we had to break out the ropes and harness. He was a little shocked but the excitement and adrenaline took over and he handled it well. When we got to the top of the cooly there was a nasty cornice and some rotten snow on a exposed 70% rock face. We got in a safe spot and I lead a interesting 30 meter section of hard snow and rotten snow. I topped out, belayed rich and miranda up and then I thought to myself how do we get back into it...... Luckily there was a nice rock fin that I was able to throw a sling on and miranda and Big Rich got to do there first ski repel! After skiing 2,000vert of 50% steep couloir skiing and some rope work there was only big smiles and tired legs, but WELL WORTH IT! |
Are 3rd trip to hatcher for the weekend we decided to go for a little bit bigger of a line. 3,000 vert of steep 45% skiing was the leg burner we needed to be exhausted for the next week of school. This was a north facing aspect so the snow was a little different then the other 2 west facing aspects we had skied previously that weekend. It had already slide probable 3 weeks ago and had blown in with 5 inches of new. Knowing that there was a solid bass and the new snow was bonding well we where able to get into this cooly in prime conditions. I was exhausted from the last 2 days and for the first time ever I had to stop half way up the cooly and sit down to rested, wired! Also I was so tired I had Big Rich and Randy set the rest of the booter! THEY KILLED THIS TRIP! |