Never Summer Range Traverse

I set out the first weekend of April to ski from Cameron Pass to RMNP with Mark Koob. We had attempted this traverse a few years ago with another friend, Travis, but decided to bail at Lake of the Clouds after unfavorable weather.

Using the knowledge gained from the last time I set a more ambitious goal of also summitting all the peaks from Richthofen to Baker and getting as many ski descents in as possible.

We didn't have any car shuttle help, so had quite a bit of driving to do with 4 hours on Friday night and 5 hours on the return on Sunday night.

We started at the Crags trailhead at 4am on Saturday moving quickly to warm up. It was quite cold. I was wearing my micropuff under my helmet and had on windshells plus a hand warmer over my gloves. We had warmed up by the time we got past Agnes Cabin and we could start to see the moon losing some of its disk to the eclipse. Unfortunately we followed an existing skintrack in the dark and ended up on the flank of the wrong mountain(Braddock Peak). After breakfast burritos we realized our mistake and decided to ski traverse around staying as high as we could. Mark left his skins on and his splitboard in ski mode while I ripped and locked my heels. We skied through a number of large slide paths that had gone big within the past few years. One in particular felt almost like walking though burned out forests north of Steamboat Springs. It was eerie.

The snow was in great shape with 4-6 inches of fresh on top of a nice stable base and we had high expectations for our descent down Richthofen's SE face later in the morning.

We skinned up past Lake Agnes and made good time to Richthofen's shoulder. Amazingly the fresh snow made for easy skinning with no ski crampons required.

When we gained the ridge we were cold again with significant wind and while the sun was hitting Mahler Peak to the west of us, it would be awhile until we were blessed with its warmth. The hiking up the ridge was treacherous with the talus being loose and only covered with the most recent storm. It made slow and frustrating progress. When we got the view of our planned descent we were disappointed to find dry talus where there was plenty of snow on our last attempt. We started to climb down the talus to a ribbon of snow but that felt unsafe due to the steep pitch. I kicked off a large block and it kept bouncing past my view. So as soon as possible I put on my skis to sideslip the 'ribbon of death.' It is even more fitting here than early season at the resorts, and fall would have been very dangerous and the snow was narrow and very firm. I did manage a few turns in a small powder deposit before traversing hard right where we had made it down in 2013. I had to cross another talus field with fresh snow on top of dry rocks. This was possible by stepping with my skis, but I worried about how Mark, on a snowboard, would manage it. I managed to avoid any coreshots, but did definitely cause a little pain to my edges and bases with this maneuver. I kept traversing until I could see a line that I was reasonably sure would go. Due to the steepness and the fact that the slope rolls over I couldn't be certain that skiing down the snow I had just traversed would have gone, but in the future I would like to do a bottom up ski of this pitch because there are some very interesting lines to be had with the right beta. I skied down a narrow ramp with variable snow until I could see for sure that I would make it down and then turned my attention to Mark.

Hiking Schneeberg

I wrote this a while ago, but had not published it out. It may be useful information for someone looking for a dayhike in the Vienna, Austria area so here goes.

I recently had a day off from work in Vienna and so I headed to Schneeberg to get a day hike in.

I found getting there to be super easy, just take the subway to Philadelphiabrücke which is also the Wein Meidling train station and buy a ticket to Puchberg am Schneeberg and take the first train to Wein Neustadt. These trains are very frequent, I would say about 5 an hour.

At Wein Neustadt look at the boards for trains to Puchberg am Schneeberg and then hop on. This train runs every hour all day.

Skiing the Ford-Stettner Route on the Grand Teton

SUMMIT DAY

We awoke after a good 9 hrs of sleep at 4:15am. The moon was high and casting perfect light onto the Grand Teton massive that began practically out our tent door. Although the peak is close at the crow flies, getting to the route and up requires stamina, patience, skill, and a little luck. For us, this day, everything came together and the mountain allowed us passage and the privilege to stand atop.

Starting up the boulder field we hiked by the guide camp, trying to move quietly. It did not matter, we soon found out from another group of two camped close by- the guided group of 4 had left 2 hrs earlier.  Together the twosome from Bozeman and us hiked up the Teepee glacier. The sun was rising off in the distance, creating enough light to see and change into crampons and harnesses.

After the little saddle of Teepee we went down a slope and around an arete into the Stettner couloir.  Here the two guys zipped by as they were soloing the first pitch, whereas we roped up. Tim lead first.  We ended up simul-climbing as well because the distance was too great between the anchors.  A fact I learned later, which I was glad to find out after the fact.

At the first belay station. Not too steep, but worth starting out roped for the  confidence and the mind-set shift.  Now begins the climb- slow and steady in the Chevy

Spring Never Summer Skiing

After skiing Nokhu Crags last year where we topped out on Breakfast Couloir and looked South into Snow Lake and the Never Summer range, I decided I needed to explore the area(and do a ski traverse). 

I recently had been planning the traverse and had two buddies to come with, so we went for it. 

West ridge up Richthofen

We had planned to ski from most of the peaks in the range, camping half way at Lake of the Clouds. However, slower than anticipated travel speed and severe warming early in the day conspired to change our plans.

Longs, Storm and Lady Washington

After being thwarted by Trail Ridge Road being closed Friday, we thought to shorten our Glacier Gorge Traverse by one night and decided to camp at Boulder Field on Saturday night, climbing Longs in the AM and then continuing on Keyboard of the Winds from there.