Three Coulior Day in the Winds: Part 1, Karla's Coulior

Calvert Lake Couliors
Southern Wind River Range, Silas Canyon, Popo Agie Wilderness Area, Shoshone NF
April 8th, 2006

Karla's Coulior

We met at the Louis Lake Parking lot at 6:30am. To ski the Calvert Lakes area you have a 15 mile snow machine ride to the wilderness boundary. Then a 3 mile skin up Silas Canyon just to get in the area. It's worth it though. I got the Atlantic Peaks mixed up in this picture, but you'll figure it out.

Here's the view about a mile or so into Silas Canyon. The Calvert Lakes kind of another separate canyon or drainage that is in between Atlantic and Silas canyons.

This is Christina Lake viewed from the saddle or ridge that separates the Calvert Lake drainage from Silas Canyon.

Here's the first peek you get of the Calvert Lake couliors when you climb the saddle. For Karla's Coulior, we used this ridge to access the top of the aspect.

Chuck begins the boot pack up to the top. It was really windy up there (60mph gusts). Karla had a hard time standing up- we all did. Strange snow though, because it was warm. The snow would stick to you, then melt and turn to ice.

Karla pushes up the final pitch to the top. Even though it was windy, the snow was soft. Not too soft though, it felt great! The boot tracks would set up really good.

Since it was so windy and miserable up top, we looked for the first coulior we could find, so we could drop and get out of the wind. This was my first look down Karla's coulior. Had visibility been better, I'm not sure I would have picked this one to do first. It was pretty steep and narrow up top. I down climbed it a bit to check snow conditions and make sure it went where I thought it did. It was safe, it would have to do.

We down climbed the coulior a bit to get out of the wind. We dug a ledge to hang out on while we got ready to drop. I did some more snow tests. Very good snow pack. Conditions were a go. If you look close you can see the frozen hair hanging out of Karla hood. I'm not sure, but I kinda think maybe I might not have been her favorite person at this point in time. Ha!

Chuck and Karla begin to drop Karla's Coulior.

Chuck and Karla out of the narrows and on to the apron!

Chuck, wiggling his way down through a gap.

With the gap behind him, Chuck lets tears it up!

Go Chuck!

Karla finesses her way through the gap and surfs her coulior.

When we reached the bottom, the smoke cleared and we could see what we just dropped. Yowza! Looks like we could have probably taken an easier line. Oh well. We're "hard core"! Ha!

One last look at Karla's Coulior.

"What now?" It wasn't even lunch time yet. "Hmmm, that one looks good . Let's try it!"

(See Part 2)