Oct 8, 2011, Chowder Ridge/ Hadley Peak Attempt

Camped at the parking lot of the Cougar Divide and headed out on the trial at 830 am. We were meet with outstanding views about a half mile into the hike. We reached continuos snow at the climbers camp at 3.2 miles in at elevation 6100ft which took us about 3hrs. From here it was another 500 ft of vert to gain Chowder Ridge.

Once we gained the ridge we contemplated weather to wait and see if the snow would soften or ride it as is. One of my companions took a few turns and deemed it worthy of riding. We descended skiers right down Chowder Ridge and followed prominent knoll down into the basin until the snow ran out. From there we started skinning up a chute below Hadley Peak, as we began climbing the Hadley Glacier we got to about 7200' and the snow turned to sheer ice. At that point we opted to head lookers left and get on top of some sweet looking fingery chutes. The riding was interesting crust type snow that began to soften and rode very well! We rode back to the basin than skinned part way up the Hadley glacier to get a couple more turns as the snow was getting prime.

After a solid day of skinning and hiking we called it quits and walked back along the Cougar Divide with more spectacular views as the sunset. All in all a great day.
Check the link for a video of the day http://vimeo.com/30353311