Pictures From the Skintrack

[Slim]

Haha, @Tony S , that is our amazing new countertop, doesn’t show any crumbs or anything! Great improvement over the Formica white one that we had , that showed everything, and was impossible to get entirely clean.

 

[Primoz]

It's that time of a year, where skiing mellow stuff gets boring, and there's no powder left, so it's time for some real stuff above 55 degrees This one is considered as quite demanding winter climb, and honestly, it was on limits of my comfort zone for going up, as climbing might look like fun, but never really did it for real, so I would never consider myself as climber, and having whole bunch of air under my butt doesn't make me super comfortable. But once skis are on, it's different world, and it was pure fun skiing down

Our today's playground:

Entering this line

Still quite far down

Fun part

Most of hard stuff is behind, now few nice long turns to bottom

 

[dbostedo]

It's that time of a year, where skiing mellow stuff gets boring, and there's no powder left, so it's time for some real stuff above 55 degrees This one is considered as quite demanding winter climb, and honestly, it was on limits of my comfort zone for going up, as climbing might look like fun, but never really did it for real, so I would never consider myself as climber, and having whole bunch of air under my butt doesn't make me super comfortable. But once skis are on, it's different world, and it was pure fun skiing down

Our today's playground:
View attachment 126769

Entering this line
View attachment 126771

Still quite far down
View attachment 126772

Fun part
View attachment 126773

Most of hard stuff is behind, now few nice long turns to bottom
View attachment 126774

Your red line appears to go over rocks toward the bottom. Is there actually a gap there, or did you have to take the skis off?

 

[Primoz]

@dbostedo there's actually "gap" which is not visible from photo, so no need to take skis off, and we could continue full speed down this wide terrain under wall

 

[Mothertucker]

Midnight powder laps.

 

[Mothertucker]

SoCal backcountry yesterday.

 

[Erik Timmerman]

A different view of Stowe.

 

[4ster]

SoCal backcountry yesterday. View attachment 128316

UFO’s or Pelicans

 

[Mothertucker]

UFO’s or Pelicans

We weren't sure, but we believe they were white pelicans. Why they were up around 9k, I do not know.

 

[Slim]

SoCal backcountry yesterday. View attachment 128316

Beautiful terrain with the snow and rocks! And those birds, such an strange element, looks like you were drawing on your photo!

 

[Slim]

Well, with the low snow year in 2021, Sprit Mountain closed early, closing last weekend.
The silver lining is that it makes it easier to go skinning, especially for my school age girls.
We did one quick lap Friday afternoon, with some beacon practice.
Today, we enjoyed the 1.5” fresh that fell yesterday, and under sunny skies, did 4 laps. ~2000” vertical.
Practiced our kickturns, and the 10 year old really improved.

Great day: Lunch on a rock in the sun.
coming up to the top, seeing two 20 somehting dudes already ripping their first skin, yet my girls were halfway down before those guys pushed off (#proudparent-of-awesome girls).

 

[Mothertucker]

^^^SuperDad!

 

[Doug Briggs]

 

[Slim]

@Doug Briggs ,
in the snow with friends, always a great day.

where is that?

 

[dbostedo]

@Doug Briggs ,
in the snow with friends, always a great day.

where is that?

You can read a post about it here: https://www.skitalk.com/threads/2020-2021-colorado-weather-and-stoke-and-beer.20453/post-598401

 

[Primoz]

Lately conditions here are awesome for skiing steep stuff, even though it's better to start early, as down in valley we got mtb weather this week with temperatures around +20c. So 6am start from parking at 1000m above sea level and temperature +3c, but snow was still slightly frozen so it was good. About 1h on skis, then switching to crampons and ice axes and another 45min and some 500m ascend with 4 wheel drive
Sun was late today, and when it decided to rise above nearby peaks, I was close to place under face where I went off the skis and into crampons

It's slightly steeper then it looks, and top 100 height meters are actually pretty damn steep with some 60 degrees

Out of couloir on once for change wind free and flat top of the hill, so it was pretty cool place to get some rest and enjoy the views.

Perfect place to enjoy sun and get ready for skiing down

 

[Mothertucker]

^^^I think this deserves a full TR!

 

[Primoz]

^^^I think this deserves a full TR!

Maybe next winter But that would be too much pressure on me then

 

[Primoz]

With promise of more then 50cm new snow (until now we didn't get more then 5cm, so I think that was it from this cold front passing), I still had few steep lines in plan, when conditions for that were right. If we would really get those 50cm, it would be probably to dangerous to do anything, as base would be almost pure ice, and then 50cm cold snow on top would mean it would slide just when you would look at it.
So weather forecast promising sun and not more then +1c to +2c higher up for Easter Monday, was perfect to get this plan rolling. And with snow promise for today (Tuesday), it was time to pack few lines in single tour instead of taking it easy doing one by one Sunny it was, but temperatures were quite a bit higher then expected, so climbing last line up on crampons, I was sweating as I never had before when "skiing". But it was cold enough during night, that at 12, when I had last descent, and as face was SE oriented, I had actually pretty nice skiing down. It was definitely easiest V+ (with S6 for first 150 height meters) graded line I have been ever skiing, and even if over 55 degress for most of those 400 height meters, it felt more like III or maybe III+ On the end it took slightly more then 5h, a bit more then 15km and a bit more then 2000m of ascend, mostly except for first 500m on skis, all ascend was on foot.

Normally I stay on the other side. That N facing walls (left Begunjska Vrtaca, right Veliki Vrh/Begunjscica) and are my normal playground, and bottom of wall is only some 20min skinning from car park, and car park is less then 20min drive from my home.

First line of the day. Super icy, and especially in bottom part way too many stones from walls, and as that wouldn't be enough, remains from old avalanches, so skiing in bottom part was anything but great.

Getting back up. I didn't believe to my Polar that it's really 500m of ascend, as skiing down felt more like 200-300m max, so I didn't bother to change. Well on the end it took 40min to climb back up, but except last 10m it was in shadow, so it wasn't too hot

Original plan after first line was to get back and to get up to wall on first photo, but contrary to Sanka in Cool runnings () I wasn't feeling very Olympic, and I know myself good enough, to know that once I would get back under first wall and be as tired as I was, I would probably just continue toward car. So there was fast plan change, and I went into 3 couloirs on mountain of right photo, leaving highest and hardest one for last.

Top of last one, when I was already wet like I would just come out of shower, and dead tired, yet there was still this one, and some 6km back to car, luckily except for 100 height meters of ascend, everything else was skiing down Beginning of this one is nice and easy, but then there's almost 400m of pretty steep stuff. But skiing in this soft snow was really easy, except that you needed to be carefull as with every turn, whole bunch of snow went down with you. But it's some 10m wide so it's wide enough that with a bit of changing direction from time to time, you could control it easily. For the first time in my life, I was actually able to ski this steep stuff with normal gs like turns, and it felt so good I was seriously considering climbing up again, once I was on bottom

 

[Slim]

Wow, 15km and 2000m vert, that’s a big day! And in such steep terrain, that’s not easy in the legs either up or down.
Way to get it done during the weather window you had. As always, great photos and beautiful mountains,