March 3, 2007, Pickhandle Basin Dawn Patrol
3/3/07
1932
4
In face of all the controversy and heated discussion surrounding the Boyne/Crystal fiasco I wanted to pause and give a nod to the natural playground and stellar configuration of geological formations that the crystal valley happens to be. Between vertfest and the last two days touring: thanks to said wad of mountain, this weekend definitively did not suck.
Much skiing was had but the most pictures and more relevant snowpack info went down today so here goes. Getting out the door at 5am in order to make room for flights home, group projects, class and other such distractions, fellow UPSer Howdy Tuthill and UPS to UCBoulder transplant Dave Reed and myself rallied on up to try and track down some north facing goodies in Pickhandle.
Dave-Os prolonged efforts to get his ladyfriends permission to come out and play were almost confounded upon discovering that his boots were still holding it down in Tacoma. After making plans to reunite later in the morning after the rental shop opened up, Howdy and I began to skin towards the Basin. Moments before treeline, Dave-O sprinted out of the lodge, having discovered a pair of derelict rental boots sitting inside the lodge. Despite a sharpied note reading not safe pointing towards the toe of the right boot, we forged on.
Cranking out four laps in three hours, we found tasty goods on true north aspects but things became a little crusty on more westerly slopes. Newly formed but still tiny windslabs were not building an especially healthy relationship with said westerly sun crusties and worth watching out for as the accumulation accumulates. A quick snowprofile on Sunday and extensive turnmaking on all aspects suggest that, at least up until this afternoon, Friday nights snowfall remains stuck to the January crust. Best shredding conditions were found wherever gullies and trees had enabled more substantial snow gathering. Southerly winds were bombing over the ridge and snowfall was ramping up as we headed back down to the car.
Much skiing was had but the most pictures and more relevant snowpack info went down today so here goes. Getting out the door at 5am in order to make room for flights home, group projects, class and other such distractions, fellow UPSer Howdy Tuthill and UPS to UCBoulder transplant Dave Reed and myself rallied on up to try and track down some north facing goodies in Pickhandle.
Dave-Os prolonged efforts to get his ladyfriends permission to come out and play were almost confounded upon discovering that his boots were still holding it down in Tacoma. After making plans to reunite later in the morning after the rental shop opened up, Howdy and I began to skin towards the Basin. Moments before treeline, Dave-O sprinted out of the lodge, having discovered a pair of derelict rental boots sitting inside the lodge. Despite a sharpied note reading not safe pointing towards the toe of the right boot, we forged on.
Cranking out four laps in three hours, we found tasty goods on true north aspects but things became a little crusty on more westerly slopes. Newly formed but still tiny windslabs were not building an especially healthy relationship with said westerly sun crusties and worth watching out for as the accumulation accumulates. A quick snowprofile on Sunday and extensive turnmaking on all aspects suggest that, at least up until this afternoon, Friday nights snowfall remains stuck to the January crust. Best shredding conditions were found wherever gullies and trees had enabled more substantial snow gathering. Southerly winds were bombing over the ridge and snowfall was ramping up as we headed back down to the car.
Sorry about riding on your skin track up on the ridge we were looking at dropping into Pickhandle but saw you guys had already hit it so we dropped off the face towards quicksilver.
Hot damn Sam, and here I thought you'd never get around to documenting your powder days, good work.
Here's my shameful attempt to garner traffic to our site.
Here's my shameful attempt to garner traffic to our site.
that smile says it all...!
author=Splitboard Graham link=topic=9362.msg37808#msg37808 date=1204691662]
that smile says it all...!
- Indeed! Now if I could only finish this pesky schooling I'd sleep like that everyday...
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