Shortly after 7:00 we were skinning up the base of the mountain on a beautiful nearly blueberry day. We were i
n T-shirts almost to begin with, which would end up being a slight mistake later. Snow was of course rock solid at the start but all was fine without too much steepness. 10 minutes in, Blythe and I got stuck in a gully and booted it for about 100 feet, but besides that it was smooth going for the most part. So we ascended left up the SW face and then back right. I had indeed become one with
my gear, was a bundle of energy, and "ran" in front of the group. We zig-zagged through forests finally arriving at more open areas (Lucas pictured on the left and Blythe with Rainier on the right). Here we tried to climb right to meet up the route from cave ridge. Unfortunately things got much steeper and hadn't softened very much in the morning sun. Upon trying to turn on a switch back I ended up slipping and taking a slide. Nothing major, except I skinned most of both of my forearms on the ice. I am starting to realize that we are all drama queens and we need some kind of mild drama on all of our trips. We righted the ship and kept climbing, about 1000 feet from the summit. We traversed right under some cliff bands, over others and finally met up with the Cave Ridge route about 200 feet below the summit. By this time, the snow was getting baked by the sun and softening up, promising to give us an enjoyable ski down in contrast to Lucas' and my p
revious trip. Unfortunately, while we skinned up, a pin in Lucas toe piece (binding) broke off. Don't know what or how, but he lost lateral stability reminiscent of my day last time out, although not as bad. Yes drama queens we are! Not to be outdone, Blythe also wanted in the drama queen action and one-upped my slide down, but just without the visible scars of mine. In the end Lucas decided to boot it the last 250 feet long with Blythe who joined me on the summit for a nice summit dance (left). Luckily we would find that that the binding issue was not going to be a major impact the descent with the heal clipped.So after the brief pow wow at the windy, cold summit, we put away the skins a
nd planned our way down. We skied down SE looking for an entrance to the bowls on the E face. We actually descended farther than needed but c'est la vie. Pictured (right) is our route down - summit just out of pic and Lucas' coming straight towards the
camera. On the ridge and to the E the snow was quite soft and slushy. We skied down to a group of trees for some rest and lunch in a warm, protected area (left; in the background is Kendall peak - Monday's excursion). After that it was pure enjoyment (mostly) skiing the bowls down to cave ridge and beyond. Of course, we did have a tad of route finding issues through some cliff bands on the lower half of the mountain, but nothing that bad.So it was a great ski with great people again. I finally got to get out hiking/climbing/BC with Blythe, a great addition to our drama queen group. Now it's Lucas' turn to figure out the gear issues and get his gear in working order.
The most amazing thing of the day is that when we got to the car I through my gloves on the roof of Lucas' car since he didn't unlock any doors (it's all his fault). I proceeded to leave them there and completely forget about them. When we dropped Blythe of at her house she surprisingly asked, "whose gloves are these?" wtf? We were going 75 mph for 45 minutes and not only one, but both gloves stuck to the roof! crazy ... and late that night after buying a lottery ticket .....
Here's what Lucas had to say.
1 comment:
Holy gorgeous pictures, KCK! It's fun reading about your adventures. :)
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