Yeah! Photo: David Howland Skier: Sam Willits

Alex Photo: David Howland Skier: Alex Davis

Looming Photo: David Howland

Strangled Photo: David Howland

Circle Photo: David Howland

Hiking Photo: David Howland Hiker: Jonathan Howland

Mts. Sacagawea and Hardscrabble

Overall, a great hike. After descending most of the road, we parked the car off the side of the road and hiked around in the woods, fields, and pastures for a while. It’s really weird, after living much of my life in the incredibly demarcated and boundarized East Coast to be able to just park a car and hike off into the woods for a while. It’s a wonderful feeling of freedom that makes the hiking that much more enjoyable.

We left campus around 7:30 and were hiking at 8:00.

The hike up was much easier this time. The road took us to the base of the Pierre’s Knob lift. From there, we hiked up a cat track to a spine that took us along the cat track to the top of Pierre’s Knob.

A 20-30 minute bootpack up the spine took us past the Finger chutes and along a meadow. At the top of the fourth Finger we stopped and clicked in. Below us were the chutes, one of which looked really nice, and three others which looked rocky. The meadow was covered in about three feet of fresh, albeit tracked powder. We’d been told by some other hikers that the meadow was just grass and there would be no rocks. Ultimately, I decided that I’d have all season to ski the Fingers in much better conditions.

My first turns down the meadow were absolute bliss. Not quite cold smoke powder, but certainly the closest I’ve ever seen. I tracked up my swath of meadow and the rest of our group followed.

Alex enjoyed her first turns of the season.

Sam followed and found the goods.

After the meadow we skied the cat track back down to the car. Top to bottom powder skiing on October 29th? Welcome to Montana.

I parked the car at the trailhead on the Summer Road trail and we started hiking up the slope under the Bridger Lift. Right off the bat there was patchy snow cover and by the time we reached the bottom station of the lift, there was a solid inch covering everything.

The trail (Bridger Run) became steeper and the climbing trickier the closer we got to the top. Two hours of slogging uphill under the lift…

…slipping and sliding on the unbonded snow and we reached the patrol shack at the top of the Bridger Lift. Hiking up, we noticed that the North Bowl area appeared to have consistent snow and appeared to be close to the top of the lift.

After resting at the patrol shack and enjoying some Arizona…

…and taking in the incredible views…

…we set out for the North Bowl. The trail quickly disappeared and we were led into a steep pine forest. I postholed into a tree well a couple times and then stepped out into an open chute. One step, and I started sliding. There was easily two feet of snow in the chute and it wasn’t sticking to anything. I grappled on the rocks and roots and finally managed to stop myself. Out came the ice axe. Thanking my judgment the night before as I pondered whether or not ot bring the axe, I followed Adam (who had somehow made it across the chute unscathed) into the next patch of trees.

The next chute offered similar terrain, but behind it I spotted another chute which cut horizontally down towards the rest of the North Bowl. I set out across the chute, looking downwards first.

I had no idea how far the cliff at the end of the chute dropped away and I really didn’t want to find out. I worked my way across the chute and tossed my axe over to Adam, who followed me.

After the extremely sketchy but fortunately safe chute crossing, Adam and I found ourselves at the top of another chute. This one, however, was skiable, and there were no rocks visible. The snow was extremely sticky and whenever we kicked chunks over the edge they would roll down the chute, growing and growing in size until they exploded against the walls of the chute. The chute below us looked perfect, and best of all, dumped out right into the North Bowl. After our hellish traverse this was an extremely welcome sight.

Finally able to take my pack off and set my skis down, I hiked up to the ridge between the two chutes and clicked in.

One nervous jump turn later and the 2009-2010 Ski Season was underway. The snow was very, very heavy and jumping was made increasingly difficult by the boulder sized chunks of snow littering the chute. I slowly made my way down and rocketed out into North Bowl, stoked as all hell. Adam followed.

North Bowl itself was a bit of a letdown after the chute. Once we lost a little bit of vertical, the terrain became a boulderfield. With each turn I could hear and feel a series of horrible scrapes as rocks ripped into my bases. Oh well. What else do you expect for mid-October skiing? We made our way down the bowl and before too long I ate shit. My ski tip caught underneath a buried rock and I went over the handlebars, so to speak, twisting the hell out of my bad knee. It hurt. Alot. Adam, fortunately, had his camera ready.

The rest of the ski out was of similiar quality.

I scored two impressive core shots and made alot of ugly turns, but it was worth it. The hike up was great, and the terrain at Bridger is incredible. I cannot wait until there is more snow and we can actually ski some of the narrow, bony lines we were scoping out today.

Oh, and the cliff we were traversing above? It’s the big one in the center of this shot:

I woke up Wednesday morning and it was dumping. Again. Awesome! I packed up, throwing my ice axe and crampons in my pack at the last minute, and left campus around 9:00. Mid-drive, I decided to change my plans and hike up from the access road trailhead at Bridger Bowl to see what the ski terrain was looking like and scope out next week’s skiing. Midway up the access road, however, I turned around, not trusting myself to make it back down the snowy, dirt road. I returned the the M Parking Lot, which doubles as the trailhead for Baldy Mountain. Short on time due to my trip to Bridger, I changed my goal to simply making the top of the ridge and set an 11:00 turnaround time. 20 minutes in and I was at the base of the M itself. The view was stunning.

Amazing view from the M

I continued up past the M. The trail to the righthand side was packed, slippery mud, so I retreated to the right and rejoined the ridge trail above the M. As soon as I entered the trees again, the snow began to get deeper. It went from a couple patchy inches at the bottom of the trees to a solid, continuous two feet of packed snow at the top of the ridge. It had been snowing all day and there was about two inches of fluffy fresh pow on top of the packed snow.

The snow only got deeper the higher up the ridge I climbed

Approaching treeline.

The trail to the top of the ridge was steep and short. Another 40 minutes, and at exactly 11am, I gained the ridge. The view was incredible…

The view from the top of the ridge was awesome, easily eclipsing the view from the M.

Standing in deep snow on October 7

The trail stretched on uphill towards Baldy, but my overactive conscience demanded that I return to campus and study. I hopped, skipped, and jumped down the trail to my car in about 20 minutes. 5 hours later, and it is still snowing quite intensely here in Bozeman. More pictures from the trip follow.

The full-size version of the panorama is here.

Overall, a great, although short hike. I’ll definitely be back to this ridge and hopefully to Baldy. And I now know that there is enough snow to ski on the ridge.

To The Tip Top House

Three thousand feet below, the sun was shining. Fleshy tourists were diving into swimming pools, splashing each other as they frolicked in the water. They could relax. Their lives did not depend on the careful placement of their ice axe, on the tenuous grip of their crampon in the snow.

Mine did. I was perched on the side of Mount Washington. I’d left Pinkham Notch at 7:34 A.M., setting my sights on the summit. Two hours of slogging had brought me here, to this  outcropping of bare rock. With my back resting against the granite, I watched the wind blast particles of snow off the rock and into space. The summit was still two miles away, and fifteen hundred feet up. At the top I could look forward to more wind, more snow, more ice, and the summit sign. On the way I would be fighting my way through thigh-deep drifts of thick snow, squinting through my goggles, trying to discern the next trail marker. Most people would have turned around and hiked back down to the valley floor, to the hot tub and warm bed that awaited them. Not me.

This was why I was here. Stranded on Cape Cod on all but the winter weekends, I had learned to crave blizzards, wind, and real winter. I had driven all the way to New Hampshire to test myself against exactly these types of conditions. The physical difficulty of what I was doing was why I had traveled from the sunny shores I called home. I had plotted out this weekend months in advance and prayed for a storm, hoping for what the British call “heavy conditions”. I wanted to throw myself against the worst the mountain could offer and come out victorious.

Why? Because I thrive on adversity. I enjoy challenges, enjoy putting myself through hell and back, knowing I’m going to wake up in the morning mentally and physically exhausted. I live my life looking for challenges to throw myself at. Most people call this foolish, but I don’t see it that way. I live for the toughness that comes from being able to master everything life can throw at me. It quite literally feels like I’m on top of the world.

I shouldered my pack, grabbed my axe from its resting place against the rock, and kicked my crampon into the ice. Stepping out from behind the rock, I pushed my way into the wind and the snow. Hundreds of steps later, I made the summit. I stood next to the sign that warned of the “Worlds worst weather” and scraped the caked ice off my goggles. Despite accomplishing my goal, I was only halfway done. The storm was only getting worse, the winds picking up and the temperature dropping. I was covered in ice, and four hours of descent awaited me. After barely five minutes on the summit, I turned around.

I’d never felt so alive.

Some of the pictures are really blown out, unfortunately, because it was past the “golden hour” for light. I took some EV Stop images which I’ll merge into HDR pictures and post, if they work out at all.