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Headed out with loren for a trip to Castle Mountain. I'd never been up to the area so i was pretty excited to get out there, even though our destination was 24 miles back, which needless to say is beyond pushing it for me. The area was amazing, with huge rock faces everywhere, and endless couloirs to contemplate. We had great weather, and somehow i manage a 16 mile day. The couloir we were heading for was about 1300 feet at a consistent 50 degrees or so. Nice and wide except for the top, and opening into a huge bowl. Good fun.

View of Whitetail Couloir from the trail.


Taking a break in the meadow.


We set up camp 8 miles in, and had a gorgeous view of Whitetail right out of the tent. Pensive tower was right outside the tent as well. By far the pretiest place i've camp to date. Unfortunatly the picture didn't turn out.

Loren hiking back the second day.


View of Castle Mountain. The drainage you see to the far right was the bottom of our line.


View of our destination.


Where Loren is was the highest we were able to get up the couloir. There was a bergschrund about two feet wide where he was. We could have roped up and crossed, but the cave system underneath was a little more than we felt like playing with, It dropped down about 60 feet to blue ice, but the cave system went all the way across and farther than we could see out, so we would have been riding over the cave. A bit much for me.


The only riding photo i was able to get.


We were still able to get about 1500 vert riding down, but it was a shut down to hike all the way back, and not be able to ride the goal. Still a great trip and a personal accomplishment for me. Great fun.

NICE WORK! i think whitetail just made it to "someone's" list. not me, btw.

all these spring/summer TR's are sick. big ups to all!

Wow, 16 mile day? You make me feel bad about my weekend. Bitched like hell about a 12 mile loop. You are tough girl

Yea, Whitetail was going to be the consolation for us, but it was really run out towards the bottom, and by the time we got back i was way to beat to climb 3000 more feet up. Deffinatly next year though!! I'll save it for you Dave.

Don't feel too bad patroller, i lost it with about 3 miles to go. I bit Loren's head off when he said we were almost there for the 600th time. He stayed a little further ahead for the rest of the way out.

Well , we should do something together. Save ourselves the hike and just sit in the parking lot and yell at each other. Hell, we dont even need snow for that.

You know it. Put some tequila into the mix and the yelling will go GREAT!

Can't wait to see the TR. Maybe some helmetcam footage?

Sweet effort! Guess we're spoiled here with so many roadside attractions. I don't know if I've ever done 16 miles in a day with a split. I'm a wuss.

I still have plenty of moonshine left

You know i'm down with the moonshine. Not so much the strawberries though.

I just have to say, for my fragile little ego's sake, that normally a shrund' isn't to big a deal. However, this shrund' was deep, to wide to jump, and the little snow bridge across looked pretty sketchy (especially since Megan knows very little about rope mechanics if I were to fall through). It was more like 4 feet wide and an honest 50 feet deep opening into a wide cavern, very cool, but pretty disapointing to hike 24 miles and not even get in the couloir proper... oh well, we still had a blast!

Sounds like we need a new post area.."Long Trips with no turns"

I agree. At least when it comes to me, any long trips don't pan out. Maybe one of these days the mountain gods will accept me and let me win one.