3/3/02
Sunday morning - after the requisite overnight ebb and flow battle with the sleep tent stove - we had designs on the Big Sheep Basin to see what we could see. Set a track up the south aspect of Wing Ridge to reach the bottom of the basin. Once again Scott, Allen, and Matt doing a fine bit of skintrack construction. The whole skin in had us targeting a big pyramid feature with a really obvious aesthetic line down the NE side at the head of the ridge dividing Big Sheep and Bonny Lakes basins.
| The target for the day - slide path on right aspect . . . we didn't even scratch that yummy terrain in the distance. |
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After lunch we rotated around the NE aspect of the feature and started up to the top.
| Rounding the corner on the way up - skiing lines obvious directly ahead. |
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Tom punched in and set an aggressive switchbacking ramp up to a high saddle, getting us to the top in a hurry.
| Ramping up to the high saddle. |
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| Scott topping out. |
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The views from the top were outstanding as before.
| Jon and Allen prepping for the drop-in. |
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| Jon and Lisa reviewing the weekend's work. |
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| "I knew we'd finally make it out here, Jimmy" |
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Scott hopped into the line that we had designs on and criss-crossed the top of the bowl with ski cuts before dropping in and skiing all the way out to the bottom and side of the obvious deposition zone.
| Scott drops in - first tracks down this incredible line. |
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Allen dropped in next into this incredibly aesthetic and deep line and laid down a tight line paralleling Scott's tracks. Jon and I dropped down the ridge a bit to get into the queue of an obvious shot to skiers left of the main gully. After Jon cut the top of this bowl a couple of times I dropped in and raced loose dry powder sluffs down the top part of it before the angle eased off a couple of degrees and settling into some delicious powder turns.
After everyone made their way down, all agreed another lap was in order. Scott made his way up and out via Wing Ridge back to the parking lot and trailhead as he had to return to the world on Monday. We made it back to the top of this shot in a very brief 25 minutes and prepared for the second effort.
| The gang getting ready for lap #2. |
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I had designs on an untracked part of the upper gully and dropped in 1st.
| Just before dropping in on lap #2 - start turning and keep turning until you're almost to the shadow line - repeat as necessary. |
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The thigh burn was a good one and by the time I reached the run-out lazy fast turns had taken over. I then mashed a stump just under snow surface at speed and tumbled fairly spectacularly - sans right ski. After a few minutes searching for my buried ski in the deep, the rest of the group made their way down as well - grinning as hard or harder than after the 1st time around. Jon, Tom, and Allen had discovered an excellent stretch of snow that had yet to be tapped and all had a bad case of the grins by the time they reconnected with us.
| Glenda dives into lap 2 - making turns to the left side of the upper gully. |
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| Matt follows (middle left glades) up by spooning his wife's turns - naturally. |
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Tom and Allen were still feeling fresh and went for the 3rd lap option . . . the rest of us were cooked and made our way back down the wrinkles and folds of the drainage back to the huts.
After a big couple of days I was confident the energies were gone, but the stash of adult beverages left us quite a bit of work to do. The sled loads had to be lightened before the trip out after all. . . . We spent the evening regailing and talking with the unfortunate finale beverage being the 5 liters of Franzia boxed white wine that I had slugged in. Glenda and I finished off the evening whilst increasing the angle of the wine box as got lighter and lighter. The 4am wakeup with the hairy eyeballs and mouth confirmed that we had put a dent in the supplies.