Two Ocean Powder Harvest

Two Ocean Mountain
Shoshone NF, Togwotee Pass
January 10th, 2009

Split, skinned and ready to roll. Two Ocean Mountain looms in the background.

Karla leads the way across the flats to Two Ocean Mountain.

We didn't like what we saw on our first approach. The wind drifts on the ridge were bigger than then usual, and drifted on both sides. So we down-climbed a bit to find a safer spot for our first run.

Chuck drops a little.

Later that day some other folks from Lander braved the drifts and skied some of the lower east faces. Given the east facing avi that tore loose on West Angle Mt the day before, and our history with avalanches this time of year- we let them have it. They lived too. Nothing went on them, they exercised good snow intel and caution though.

After finding what looked like might be a good test run for the day, we dug a pit. After we were finished, Karla jumped on it to get some more intel- and to cover it up.

Our pit was north facing on a 25 degree slope that was slightly wind effected. I did an extended column test (ECT). The new snow would shear (Q3) 20cm down with a couple of solid whacks, nothing sheared with wrist taps. The only major layer of concern was about a meter and half down. It may have been the Nov rain crust that's been a major concern everywhere. I had to employ and hard shovel shear to bring it out, but the shear was a Q1. The layer it slid on was very hard- knife for sure. At least 2-3cm thick- raincrust probably. I could nearly stand on it, before it failed. Nothing but sugar and depth hoar under it (about 2 or 3 feet). The entire snow pack was nearly eight feet deep. We couldn't get any of the shears to propogate across the column. After we were done in the pit, Karla hopped above it with skis on- again, the only thing that seemed to fail was the new snow and it took a hop to bring it out. After the pit we felt pretty safe skiing lower angle runs in the trees on Two Ocean. We eased our way into steeper terrain as the day went by, getting only new snow to slough or slide. It seems like the snow pack is getting deep enough that slides on the Nov rain crust will be more difficult to trigger, but man, if anything does step down to that layer... watch out! It's a plenty good reason for me to stay off the big stuff for a while.

Karla throws in the first turns for the day.

We hugged the trees pretty tight for this first run. Hard to find terrain that isn't steep on Two Ocean.

Going up for more (got five runs/ 4 to 5 K of vertical in before it was over).

Chuck eyes his next run.

Looking back a couple of classic Two Ocean lines.

A short video of the day's events.

Great powder, no avi's. Good day. I'm happy!