Training Log Archive: revy

A very nice ski in late April - not expecting it but I'll take it. The big groomer had been out on the upper trails and the ginzu had touched up the dog loop. It was getting soft in sunny spots but otherwise pristine conditions on the upper trails.

Last day of the trip and the nicest weather. We climbed to Porcupine Pass and did a roped tour through some crevasses and seracs. Our east facing descent on the Tempest Glacier had some breakable crust due to the warm weather yesterday but if you worked the skier's right slopes the snow was better. By around 1700 m we were skiing supportive crust and had a great spring ski down to the valley bottom through another narrow canyon.


100eight 9 (24)
BMT 0 (18)
Rustler 9 (22)
Mantra VW 13 (15)
Blaze 2 (2)
Roamr 108 6 (6)
Pon2oon 1 (4)
Wayback 6 (30)
Brahma 0 (3)
Drift 0 (2)
K2 1 (2)

Icefall to Rostrum. The conditions were supposed to be cloudy but the morning ended up surprisingly nice. We spent some time watching Mukunda and Julian session a jump over an ice cave then climbed up towards Kemmel. We didn't set out with a plan of reaching the summit but somehow Steve convinced us to keep going. The clouds built as we climbed so limited views other than Icefall Peak poking through once in a while. The additional time spent summitting meant that we lost our weather window to have good visibility on the descent and our guide had to do some whiteout navigation. The clouds created a greenhouse effect and the snow was rather moist.

Ski day from Icefall (two nights at this lodge). We climbed towards La Clyttte with a descent of Keffi East along the way. A little excitement with a SA size 1.5 (no involvement) triggered from the ridge by the second last skier. Mixed visibility again today as the next weather system moved in but good enough to have acceptable skiing. We explored another ice cave along the way but not as nice as the first one (the ice was grey). The upper section skied well with excellent snow though short and lower angle. I actually enjoyed the other runs better as though some variable snow to deal with the slope angles were steeper. The return from that zone involved a fairly long traverse.

A bit or precipitation overnight brought up to 30 cm in the high alpine. The longest day of the traverse - we skied down the creek for about 4-5 km then turned south up towards Portal. This day felt the most adventurous of all the traverse days - a feeling of being "out there" with some valley travel far from civilization. Mixed weather again but the sun did come out for a little bit during the most technical section. We lapped a mellow upper slope near the top then dropped southwards to Icefall. The south slopes skied fine on the lower and moderate angle sections. On steeper slopes the crust was quite noticeable. Arrived at Icefall which was a bit of a shock after spending three nights with only our small group (except for our cook last night). Bluebird in the afternoon...

Big descent day from Lyell to Alexandra. The descent options are all quite adventurous but weather was not cooperative for the Wild West option. We put our guide onto a rope to navigate the icefield in low light but once we dropped even 100 m the visibility improved. We skied the Deep End and Corona Bowl which was still a steep line. Despite some variable sections I enjoyed this descent. The exit to Alexandra was a cool canyon (Fireball Canyon). We arrived at the cabin near lunch so decided to ski up towards WIld West in the afternoon. The sun came out for a bit and softened the snow. A bit borderline in spots with occasional isothermal snow but managed some fun turns and cool to check out the icefall from below.