In the late fall we hiked Guyot and then South along the ridge to French Pass. On the way we saw some couloirs on the ridge that were filled in with snow already, when nothing else around had much snow. We made a pact to return and ski them. We finally fulfilled that goal the second day of summer.We camped near the gate the night before and then biked in to the second gate where we hiked up the pass a bit and then the ridge. We were glad to have our aluminum crampons to make quick work of a snowfield which extended far down into the valley.
When we got to the ridge the lines were waiting for us. One of the lines has a massive cornice which had partially calved off, we would have likely needed a rope to rappel into the line, so it waits for next year. We dropped into the most obvious and simplest looking line. The snow was perfect and the couloir was very pleasantly wide, and not too steep.
We enjoyed the ski and I then wanted to head North to find what I thought was the easiest line and I was sure that it would be in. After a bit of a hike I didn't find the line I was hoping for from below. We headed back towards the first line and hiked something next to it. I insisted that we ski it since we had come all the way and it was short, but very pleasant.
We hiked up and out. Just at the top Kate saw a mountain goat, and when we topped out there were four mountain goats around us. They were extremely docile and hung around while we ate lunch.
We hiked down and got one more ski on perfect corn.
On the way out we took a frigid dunk in Little French Creek and then biked back to the truck.
It was a fantastic day.
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