2010 was a low snow year in Interior Alaska. Spring was short-lived and extremely warm. Options were limited and the snow conditions were often not ideal. Nevertheless, I made it out every weekend of May to ride something.

As it has across North America, local interest and motivation for splitboarding activities is growing in the area here and only once during May was I left without a backcountry partner. In fact I found myself trying to balance and organize trips I had planned according to the level of interest being portrayed by several partners simultaneously! This is a big change from a past of continuously heading out solo.

In 2009 I discovered a potential line on the North Face of Panorama Mountain. I was looking to ski something tight and technical and Mark suggested that we attempt to climb and ride the line on Panorama’s north face which I had showed him in a photo several months prior.

Panorama Mountain has a plethora of steep, tight, technical ski descent options on both its south and north side, many of which I am sure have yet to be climbed or skied. Additionally, I am going to venture to say that Panorama Mountain offers the most simply accessed, least effort required, ski mountaineering opportunities in all of the Alaska Range attainable from the road system. With adequate snowfall (and friendly winds that are rare) it is a special mountain in an area sparse of other easily attainable opportunities. It is the local ski mountaineers playground and because of this we have begun to refer to this place as “Panorama’s Playground”. As such we have started to name each of the couloirs we have skied accordingly. Couloirs have now taken on such names as “Tire Swing” http://splitboardlife.com/talk/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6981&sid=686fe1ffafee18497afb3f899bedda59 “Spiral Slide” http://splitboard.com/talk/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=8624&st=0&sk=t&sd=aand “Merry-go-Round” http://splitboard.com/talk/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6993

We’ll call our proposed destination here “Teeter Totter”.

With enough snowfall I knew the line was doable, with one possible down climb or rap. Mark had toured the area a few weeks prior and came to the same assessment. Here’s a look at the proposed route:

We set off early morning on the wonderful frozen creek bed approach up Slime Gulch. After being a lazy man on a helicopter for a few weeks, it felt great to be out touring again.

Here the north face comes into view. The Merry-Go-Round area can be seen on the left in the first photo. We are heading for the north buttress area towards the right. Snow is definitely sparse this season.

As I began to suspect on the approach, the Teeter Totter Couloir likely did not hold enough snow to warrant a descent. The area shown in this photo, which does not look passable, was filled in with snow last winter.

Even more, that section is not even the crux of the route. There was discussion of down climbing or rapping through this section. I became highly doubtful of an ascent in these sparse snow conditions being worthwhile. A discussion of our options led us to continue onwards to get a closer look. As we began climbing there was a lot stoke regardless of our reservations. The snow was wintery and it felt good to be gaining some vertical.

As we reached the base of the route another tight, exposed section revealed itself. Nevertheless, Mark went to explore…

…and came to the obvious conclusion that the Teeter Totter route was best saved for a heavy snow year (hopefully 2011!). In an attempt to salvage our efforts we elected to continue on, heading left and climbing an aesthetic ramp that looked to provide some decent turns.

Short, but good fun. We’ll call that “The Balancing Bar” because of its exposed ramp feature. Here it is shown in red on the left side of the frame.

All this way and shut down. ‘What to do’ we ask ourselves? Do not fear: The Playground has an answer and Savage has a plan. We traversed hard right and began ascending another possibility: a steep, tight couloir that I had taken notice of a two winters ago. I could never tell if the line would go or not from previous vantage points but today would be the day to find out for sure. The snow was stable, the climbing was good, and the surroundings were beautiful.

As we turned the corner more of the line revealed itself and we were quite happy with what we could see.

As we climbed on, a beautiful couloir revealed itself to us and it began to snow.

The chute stayed steep (45-50 degrees) and tight (15-20ft.) for a considerable time and then opened up and tapered off a bit about ½ way up (43 degrees precise, as measured by an inclinometer).

Towards the top it steepened again and got tighter and tighter (down to 6ft wide). This photo is looking down the route as we enter the upper pitch where things really tighten up again. Looks like a good ride!

The view up as we ascend the upper pitch.

The tight section.

We reached a point where it was a short class 3-4 scramble to attain the ridge (on a bigger snow year this would be rideable from the ridge). Things got very tight and there was barely enough room for all 4 of us to get our gear on.

(3 Creedlers in a Crux)

The upper crux was too tight to make turns or side slip. Mark pointed it for about 20ft. and came raging out into the wide section in a massive white room spray dumping speed and gaining control. Fearful, Savage followed cautiously and made two precision tips-on-rock jump turns…

…and then pointed it as well, forcing himself into the rock-blind world of the white room as he dumped speed.

That was a rush. But it’s all good as vision is restored and killer powder turns are being made.

Following that session Surface Hore drops in and scores some as well.

And then B- the DNP ranger gets some too.

The lower section is intimidating, but perfect once we get our flow going;

A couple of great photos here, capturing the aesthetics of this spectacular couloir; which we elect to call The Monkey Bars Couloir.

Here are two photos of Monkey Bars taken from the road.

We ski some fresh powder on the apron and get some fun corn on the way out.

It was a challenging and technical descent down a melting Slime Gulch. Here Surface Hoar slays it on split skis. You don’t want to mess with this chik boys.

Very happy outcome on this day and the Teeter Totter route will likely get done by one of us in 2011.
Stayed tuned for Part 3.

(Note: Surface Hore previously posted a TR for this trip. I was going to just add larger photos to her post, but decided to start over from scratch. Her original TR can be found here viewtopic.php?f=5&t=8862)