Wow, what a great day. Got some glacier learnin’ from Andrew and Shaun, tagged a sweet mountain in perfect weather, skied great deep powder snow on a spectacular face, and then perfect corn snow the rest of the way to the car. It’s days like this that stick with me through the summer months and keep me going.

Up at 2am, skins on at 4am.. yeah it’s getting a bit ridiculous. We went up the standard route up the glacier tongue, instead of using a shortcut ramp with exposure below due to a hard snow crust. There was a skintrack from another party heading up the ramp as well. Once we got up onto the flat glacier we saw them halfway up the face already. Andrew slept in the parking lot and said he heard a car door slam at 1:30 am. Well, I guess they do deserve it. We met up with another group of four who used the shortcut route and caught up to us. Both groups decided to sit and wait for the early birds to ski down, then make a joint push up.

Approaching the glacier toe

Waiting for the early bird group. I’m rocking a lawn chair AND sun umbrella. Can’t beat this luxury!  Photo: Shaun Vincent

The first group came down with a few large sluffs. So we knew it was powdery! Our group and the group of four started heading up, the other group graciously breaking trail up.

Me booting up the face  Photo: Shaun Vincent

After topping out on the summit, it was time to ski down. Snow was UNBELIEVABLE

Eleven dudes later, face totally scralped. Deep trenches on left are mine