3/2/02
Woke up and hit the (non-heated) groover early - a fairly bracing experience as the outside temp was now 6-below zero.
| Terrain and tracks from the night before above the huts - cook tent is the little triangle lower left. |
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After breakfast everyone loaded up for a big day. We ascended the skin track that had been set the evening before to the top of the ridge - with the idea of making Mt. Nebo the goal for the day. Tom took off early headed back to the trailhead to switch out the skis. He made a day of skiing Wing Ridge which, after looking at that terrain on the skin out, must have been amazing.
| Tracking upward above the Big Sheep drainage. |
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An incredible tour on Saturday for us. We hit the ridge and traversed across - maintaining about the 8000 foot elevation as we went.
| Traversing across the ridgeline. |
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The scenery was stunning - a sea of jagged peaks in the distance to the North and West and the Seven Devils range in Idaho to the East.
| Lisa, Allen, & Jon taking it all in. |
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After a while we had a bead on what we thought should be Nebo and decided to descend into the basin below it rather than continuing around on the ridge.
The ski into that basin below Nebo was a blast - through soon-to-expire hero snow. The pitch was SE facing and was beginning to soften with the sunshine on it - even in late morning.
| Matt schralping some virgin powder - for his pleasure. |
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After that shot, it and all other South facing stuff was pretty much toast. After some grub in the basin Jon punched in and set a track up the left shoulder of the next target - gaining a saddle fairly quickly and setting up a high ridge traverse to the top of the peak.
| Jon angling toward the saddle. |
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| Scott coming along with the morning's work evident on the pitch in the background. |
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| Scott nearing the top. |
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The peak and ridge were fairly heavily corniced but there were a couple of descent options that Scott had his eyes on. Another stunning highpoint with scenery all around.
| "You gotta be friggin' kidding me!" |
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| Allen nearing the top. |
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After a break for oohs and aahs up there we dropped down a bit below the summit to a minimally corniced ramp into a big bowl and gully below.
| Lisa, Allen, Jon, and Scott considering the options. |
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Scott ski cut the pitch a couple of times and settled into a safe spot above the gully to spot us. Jon volunteered for honors and dropped in. After about a thousand deep powder turns in this steep gully he was out of the way and others followed.
| Lisa drops in - Matt and Glenda looking over from the top. |
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Lisa and I traversed to the left of a little knob feature to what looked like a bit less hairy terrain - and found an equally steep but smooth rollover with some incredible snow in it. The skiing was tremendous, & though there was a bit of a tricky mystery layer under the top layer of powder snow, there were no complaints.
| Lisa diggin into the freshies on our line. |
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| Matt hits some uncharted territory - main gully and tracks evident to the left. |
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We made the traverse to regain our original ridge and skintrack and caught the nose of the ridge in time to witness Tom's descent off Wing Ridge back into camp. A great view with a fantastic sense of scale thrown in - Tom looked like the dot of an Etch-a-Sketch making turns on the snow. We enjoyed a blast of a descent back to camp through the trees and burn of the night before. An incredible tour.
| Another look at the morning's activities on the way out. |
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| A look back on the skin out - after finishing our work on the main face of the peak to the upper left. |
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