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We're in a strange wx pattern right now. Lots of small, windy storms with very small breaks of good weather. Luckily, those small storms are providing just enough moisture to provide us with some excellent eastsliding surfaces. Just got to be ready and hit those windows to take advantage of it. Since I just lost my job I have that luxury

4.19

Classic Sierra tour/descent in the Sawtooths.

Woke up and arrived at the trail head to this view. Juices officially stoked!


Sierra beaver
It's furry pelt keeps it warm
Rub it on my face


Lookin' good!





was skinning along around 11k feet and saw a peculiar hole in the snow. Instinctively, I just jabbed my pole in it and it was a mud hen/coot sleeping in the snow. If any of you know what kind of bird this is you'll know it's a wetland, low elevation creature who can barely fly vertically. How it ended way up here sleeping in the snow is beyond me.


Here it is after being rudely awoke to a ski pole in the back. Sorry!


View at the top. Conness, Dana, etc...


Snow was good


Line I was considering, but had left some gear below that would logistically mess things up. Next time.




There's actually a couple of skiers in this gully. They had spent the night on a tour from Mt Walt and got throttled by winds



4.22

Hooked up with rughty Thursday night and went to the BPC trailhead to do Norman Clyde couloir. I did this last year and fell in love with the tour and descent. A classic in my mind. Hoped to find some good snow although I didn't get my hopes up too high as this being more southern hadn't got the full brunt of the moisture from these storms. We would be pleasantly surprised. Just as we were leaving the car at 6:30 bcd pulled up! He as headed to Sill via same canyon so we hooked up for some touring and some riding later in the day. There was actually a lot of shit going down in this local today. Skiers/boarders gettin' after it!


Started out as a sunny and breezy day. Sun was out all the way until we topped out the chute. Then things went greybird as a storm came rolling in sooner than expected.

Our objective (upper left)




Got about half way up the glacier and realized we were in for some epic conditions.

About 1/3 up our line








view off the other side. stupid clouds rolling in and taking our light away!


Ken stoked to be dropping at 13,600 feet


Hard to make out our tracks but it was absolutely perfect all the way down the glacier. It got firm at the very bottom with patches of windbuffed pow. Once out of this canyon things were softer and we managed to get a few good corn turns on the way out too.




We looked over once out of our canyon to spot bcd returning from Sill. He reported an equal stokeage reading from his journey




The pow is out there. Go get it!

Nice edit Brooks!

Well, here are a few pics I took to add to the stoke.

BCD with Middle Palisades in the background.


first sight of our line


closer


Brooks breaking trail


walking around during a break before the final push


coming back for this one!


and maybe this one too


nobody said anything about climbing potential


time to start booting


slayed!!!



Brooks is pretty damn good at weeding out all of the crap from his edits, but I also made up an edit...

SCORE, nice work gentlemen!

fun days lost my job to adds to the fun nobody out during the week

Primo STOKE. Thanks for the footy!

You had a job Brooks? Now I'm even more jealous over all those midweek TRs the last few years!

Stoked to see this. Rughty, was sorry we couldn't meet up the weekend prior to this..I left a fairly long winded message to you on Fri. PM about where we were camped, sorry to have missed you (see our "HOH" TR)! Stoked to see you guys getting after it, and stoked to hear that BCD has finally declared spring to have begun!

Nice work boys, two very quality TR's. Looks like you hit it perfectly.

Hey Rughty,

Quick question, at 6:12min of your video, you guys hit a funny patch of snow. Was that an old deposition zone, or some weird snow melt?


Keep climbing!

SH

Yeah Jbay, sorry to have missed you guys. I tried calling, but cell service sucked down there and didn't get your message until I was on my home. We'll definitely have to ride one of these days! Your TR was pretty sick. Brooks pointed out your line on our way down to Norman Clyde. Those chutes into the hanging snowfield looked siiiiiick!!!

Yeah, the spot in question on my video was old avy debris that had partially melted. You get a decent shot of it at the end of Brooks video before we crossed it.

Yeah, those chutes and that snowfield were pretty much a death trap on that day..and can only be done in VERY stable snow conditions for obvious reasons....but it would be pretty sick to get a group of 4 guys and try to tag em all one day. Dave and I were talking and weren't even really sure how to access them...it may involve some serious trad skills!

No shortage of trad skillz or gear here! Have those chutes ever been ridden before? I am sooo on board for that trip!

Sweet score guys


Hey BG, just curious, what were your thoughts regarding rockfall on the lower portion of this route? Temps stable and not an issue?