Silver Star SW Couloir/Snagtooth Circumnav

On Tuesday Kyle Johnson and I did a circumnavigation of Big Snagtooth in route to ski one of the couloirs off the high point to the west of the silver star saddle. We got some good views of the line the prior weekend and wanted to get on it before it melted out any more.

We booted from the hairpin to a low notch in Kangaroo Ridge and made a descending traverse to gain the western ridge of Big Snagtooth. Pleasant skinning along the ridge and a few switchbacks up the south face led us to the east shoulder of Big Snagtooth. Nice turns from the shoulder led to a traverse under the Snagtooth Ridge and into the bowl below the south side couloirs of Silver Star.

Booting conditions were excellent up the couloir and we topped out at around 8700. There were a few options for the upper 150-200 feet and we chose the most obvious fall line chute. We skied great corn for much of the line back into the basin.

Once in the basin we skinned to just below a weakness in the Snagtooth Ridge south of the Dog Tooth. A quick booster to the saddle and down some choss on the back side set us up for a run down a pretty narrow but moderately angled couloir into the Willow Creek Drainage. From here we skinned low angle slopes through larch trees back towards the notch in Kangaroo Ridge we climbed to in the morning. A short down climb from the notch had as ripping perfect corn back to the hairpin.

This tour really worked aspects well and we had great ski conditions for pretty much all of our descents. Another week of sun will likely create some additional challenges on this route.