Splitboards Tour High Marker Hill

Splitboards on High Marker Hill

Christina Lake Area, Shoshone National Forest, Southern Wind River Mountains

Saturday, March 11th, 2006

High Marker Hill (from Christina Lake)

Again, this mountain doesn't really have a name. Christina pass is to left of it, that's about the only area up there that's named though, that I know of. Since there's a good snow machine trail right to the base of this mountain, and since I've seen snowmobiles high mark on it, I've kinda been referring to it as High Marking Hill. So, I'll make it official, for my purposes.

Here's a plateau above High Marker Hill, with a great view of Big Mountain, the area we surfed last weekend.

The weather was a bit colder than it had been, but the snow was deeper too. We found ourselves skinning up through some pretty good powder. Ofcourse, rather than turn around and drop it, I persuaded the crew to circle around the other side of the drainage and try to drop a steeper, cool looking run, that I had been eyeing a lot last year.

Chuck and Karla round the bend and head into run I wanted to speck out. It was steep. Not exactly blower pow though.

I figured out a way to get face shots on it though. Ha! I think Chuck did too. That'll wake you up in the morning! Whew!

How big are these slopes? Chuck and Karla traverse across one, after dropping my bright idea.

Back on the good stuff. Chuck drops.

Chuck and Karla going for seconds.

KKarla rides the pow!

Shad's third line for the day. This is only the very bottom part of the ride. Times it by three or so to get an idea how big they are.

Chuck's third line.

The upper part of my last run for the day.

Here's a profile of our second run of the day.

For most of the day we had the mountain to ourselves. We had to break trail with the skidoos to get in there, but it was all ours for a while. Around 2:30 though, as we were climbing for our fourth run, we saw about six machines buzzing across the lake headed our direction. I knew they'd probably follow our trail in, since it was the only one there. I also figured they wouldn't be able to resist shreading all of the powder that we had been decorating with squiggles all day. I was right. In no time at all they had the slope all gobbled up. Oh well, can't say I wouldn't do the same. Ha! There's enough mountain for all of us up there.

A view of some of the final runs for the day.

I'm not sure, but I think the squiggles prevailed. Ha! Not bad for a day's work. Click on it to really have a look.

A view from the chair lift.

Chuck's chair lift. Maybe next time, we'll try using them like that. Ha!

A look back at High Marker Hill. We dropped from the highest point once, and the nobby looking high points, maybe a few times.