^ Looks good Dave! ^

Sunday Dec 17 – BCC

Another day hiking with the woody. Just can’t bring myself to haul splitgear cross country to reach snow and the exits – no fucking way.

In any event, wind protected flower patches had refilled with as much as 3-5″ of loose facted wind deposits, with perhaps an inch of fresh. While challenging to ride what are essentially waterski bindings, the turns were quite good and the hiking was pleasant in midtop hiking shoes. Its pretty rad that this old board is on its thirty fifth season and still a joy to snurf.

Sorry no pics – I’m not planning to go through the hassle of posting pics here anymore, but you can see them on IG @topodojo if want to see the conditions.

Cheers!

Storms please!

Christmas Day 2017

PP3

Approach was better (via Bear Trap Rd) than its been, able to skin from highway
Deep unconsolidated trail breaking ensued and got progressively grueling.

PP3 was fantastic settled windchalk, ranging from 8-20″ inches, bad light and overcast sky with strong gusts on the ridges.
Lots of cracking and slabs in the wind deposits, no sluffing in the area traveled

The exit above the main trail where there was previously little to no snow was a trench fest, the upper main BTF trail was rideable all the way to the cabin area, which was a shit show to the highway.

Turns up high were stellar!

Cheers!

1/26/2018
[edit] Just want to add commentary after watching the Silver Fork avy assessment video from UAC – So glad that I backed down from my line in West Deso and deservedly ashamed for even going up that line alone. I could actually hear the Life Flight heli while I was skinning back over to the PP3 area. Spooky, humbling.

At last a stellar day of soft turns. Spent eight hours in BCC Friday covering a lot of terrain on all aspects, with slopes up to 40°. Conditions in the morning were overcast with intermittent squalls and poor visibility (stoked to have grabbed goggles at the last minute), bluebird conditions came and went throughout the day, peaking around 4pm before clouds moved in.

Rode aspens in the morning; both south and west facing off the back of the zones highest ridge (9600′) and explored the infamous north facing side later in the day. Hit a few unplanned rails (logs and stumps) and narrowly missed a few up close encounters with an aspen or two, but it was blower.

While all of the big name hits nearby had been worked over by noon, the northerly aspect of the prominent ridge I was exploring was pristine. It was hard to resist checking it out and so I did. Although while venturing up the northerly aspect I decided to back off 2/3 of the way up.

It was hard to back off. It was beautiful, untouched and beckoning, but the risk however small is never worth it to me. Being solo versus being in a group was what ultimately turned me back. The prospect of being caught without any rescue options is a powerful mental image. Besides, there were longer non-avy prone runs to be had in the westerly aspens.

In retrospect: Was it likely to slide, almost certainly not. Could it? Most certainly! If it slide would I survive? Unlikely. Enough said.

At any rate, I thought it important to say something positive after my last post. Overall the best day of my season yet. I hope those who weren’t able to get out on Friday get out there this weekend, as high pressure and 50’s in the valley are forecast to return.

Cheers!