Gustave Lake Bowl
The mountain above Gustave Lake
The last few weeks we've been getting alot of snow. It's made it hard to get into the Winds, and it's increased the avalanche danger quite a bit... like we triggered one two weeks ago down low around Dead Horse...
Dead Horse Ridge, back a couple around February 8th.
The crown was massive, over five feet. Pretty much stepped down to ground.
This weekend (February23rd, 2014) things were looking better. The new snow (near a foot) was much lighter density. The groomer had run over a week ago, so there was some base to the trail into Christina Lake, but we still had to break trail getting in there. We made is as far as Gustave Lake, and then got the Polaris stuck trying to make the last pull into Christina. Figured that was a sign to ski Gustave instead. Didn't really want to ski the slide path on the mountain above the lake, which is pretty much all we'd ever skied there before. This time we took a route that went further up a drainage a little to south. We ended up in a new area, and found some really nice ski terrain.
Chuck skins up.
Prepping for the first run.
We were pretty nervous about the snow in this bowl staying put. It was wind deposited. We took a safe route up the ridge in the background, then all the way around on the ridge. We ski cut and jumped on the slope all the way up... testing the snow and we climbed. We decided to drop out first line on the other edge of the bowl, where there were more trees and another safe ridge to pull out on.
Dropping!
The first run was solid, so we moved to the other side of the bowl (another ridge and tested it).
Good stuff!
Weehoo!
The view from top of the bowl- Gustave Lake below lookers right.
Over the hood!
Yeah!
A look back... another great day in the Winds!
See the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjTS4xEiubE&list=UU1sEI4a92oss2doHj7KGp2Q&feature=share
Chuck tried to get some more face shots on the way out... :)
posted by Shad Hamilton at 6:12 AM
0 comments
