February 13th, 2011 - Avalanche Canyon

Whew. It's been a while.

Since my last post, I've finished off another two online classes, switched job locations to work "over the hill" in Jackson, burned through a hard drive, exhausted an 8 year old laptop, and continued straight through a seemingly endless winter storm cycle (still currently taking place as I type this) with weekend skis, runs, and even a day or two on the bike.

To begin to catch up, here are a few shots of our adventure up Avalanche Canyon a couple months back. Liz had some friends in town and we were hoping the gale force winds from the prior day would subside enough to allow entrance into the Amora Vida couloir for an ascent/descent.

Sunrise start at Bradley Taggart

A few hours up canyon and it was clear the winds were still very much present. We could have kept going a bit longer, but for everyone's enjoyment (and safety), we turned around as going higher would lead to terrain of greater consequence and as wind tends to move snow around in funny (potentially dangerous) ways, we decided that another couloir back down the canyon a bit was a nicer choice. So we hunkered into these trees, changed over into ski mode, and grabbed a fair amount of quality turns on the way back down canyon.

Terrain in upper Avalanche Canyon

Mt. Wister with the north flanks of Buck Mtn in the background from about halfway up the couloir we ascended.

We topped out on the ridge separating Avalanche Canyon from Garnet Canyon that leads up to Shadow Peak. This is looking north over lower Garnet at the south side of Teewinot.

This is the east face of Nez Perce from higher up on the ridge leading to Shadow Peak. That sliver of snow slicing through the rock is the well-known Sliver Couloir, a planned yet thus far unreached objective for the winter.

Looking north over Garnet again, but this time with the Grand (left), Owen (the pointy peak just to the Grand's right), and Teewinot.

From here, the ski down was fairly uninspiring. It's amazing how tracked out the "backcountry" gets around here. But that's sometimes the effect of having some of the best terrain and snow conditions so easily accessible.