Saluting the distant Crystal Range to a ballistic ice chorus of space whales
This clear ice was open water by the time I returned, making icy masticating sounds, sloshing at the shore.
Tricky reckoning skittering through the forest, trying to recognize peaks by glimpses through the canopy, trying to avoid getting drawn into Lucile on the one hand or Lake of the Woods on the other, so when I popped out here, I was stoked. Like the man said, the more I practice, the luckier I get.
Decrepit old Whitebark, trying to climb out of the hole.
Side-stepping out of a little depression, after crossing Aloha, a trap door suddenly sprang, dropping me in to my crotch, my ski dangling in space. I crawled out, and it looked ten feet deep, at least. I think it was a glide crack where the snowpack bent over the lip down to the lake? Then was drifted over perfectly by our last little dusting. Crazy. Never seen nothing like it. Then backing up to get a shot of it… I dropped into the crevasse again backwards! spasticly hurling myself across onto my side, to avoid going in. The camera got so jarred it jammed. Still laying there, I shut it down, rebooted and took this shot. Then I maneuvered out of the hole and back onto my feet, laughing but a bit shaken. Good thing I had skis on (as if I even could have got here without).
Not that I would have even fit in there very far.
I grew anxious skinning above rocks, and wasnt sure how firm it might get at top, so I excavated myself a little stance while I still could, took them off, lashed them to my pack and started kicking steps in the deep wintery snow, with my poles horizontal across the slope above me. I skirted the shallow rock slab I could see just peeking out, kicking through to it twice, bottoming out on solid rock, picturing the bergschrund that might be lurking below. Trying to not fall into another crevasse sharpens one’s focus.
Booting precariously up this steep slope, I glanced straight up above me to find this young guy leaning over the lip grinning goofily, then disappearing again. What the?! That is so uncool, standing on the cornice right above me, putting me right in his line of fire. That’s not how we do. When I crested the ridgetop, he was waiting there for me, wearing crampons, carrying an ice ax, hiking out to Price, he said, but it was taking too long. I suggested he could probably move a lot quicker without the crampons, on and off snow and rock the whole way, with no appreciable ice around, regardless. He didn’t much like my suggestion, and looked puzzled when I told him where I had come from. Great seeing kids out getting after it anyway, hope he’s picking up on it too.
The serrated shadows licking like tongues of cold fire
I skied this bowl from the crest skiers right of the crag at center. I dropped in and found the smooth to be supportive yet edge-able wintery snow. The ripply was a little crunchier and I skidded on it a bit, but it was adequate, so I linked ’em fall line through the rocks there, then cut out left to the sub-ridge, where my tracks are just visible on the lower rocky face and apron.