West Hourglass Couloir // March 5, 2015

Skiing in the park requires more time, preparation and planning.  Most lines are further away and generally carry higher consequences if anything were to go wrong.  With this in mind, Maria and I set out to ski one of the classic couloirs dropping off Nez Perce to the North East.

This line also happens to be the front cover of the guide book!
Photo: The Black Book, Conor Miller

Maria heading across Bradley lake

Choosing who to travel with in the backcountry is one of the most important decisions that you can make.  When you step into the backcountry with someone, you are essentially trusting your life with them, if anything were to go wrong they are the only ones that are there to help.  There needs to be an incredible trust between partners in the mountains and for this reason I am very cautious when choosing who I travel with, especially on bigger objectives.

I met Maria on Teton Pass the month before and soon found her to be an incredible partner in the mountains.  After a number of smaller days I got to know her better and came to trust and respect her as a splitboarder.
Goal Oriented, determined, smart, calm and a good communicator-not to mention, a killer splitboarder!- she was all that I looked for in a partner.

We got an early start Thursday, leaving Taggart lake trailhead by 7 and heading towards Garnet canyon.  The morning was cold, siting right around 0 F.  Maria's eyelashes were soon frosted over and I could feel ice forming on my beard.  Movement was the only way to keep warm.  The going was relatively easy, with new snow from a few days before, the skin track had plenty of traction and was well established.  We headed west, over the ridge running off Shadow peak and down across Bradley lake to the mouth of the canyon.  It was a calm, sunny day and temperatures rapidly warmed as the sun rose higher in the sky.

With visions of deep powder turns, we started our trek up the canyon.  As we made our way up the canyon and the middle Teton came into view, we were greeted with a blustery wind ripping down from the west.  My sweat immediately froze and I stopped to throw on some more layers.  Our soft skin track disappeared into a thick windslab and my thoughts of fresh blower began to waver.  Traveling as a party of two, we had moved quickly, and reached the base of the couloir in just about three hours.  Now it was time to climb it.

Setting the skin track
Nez Perce dead ahead

With the wind howling we started the skin up the apron.  However, with such a hard wind slab, we soon found it near impossible to get traction, forcing us to transition and start booting.  We hadn't expected this much wind and hoped that the walls of the couloir had protected the snow from the worst of it.

Unfortunately it hadn't.

Rounding the corner we found the inside of the couloir to not be in much better shape than the apron. 

Although the wind buffed snow sure wasn't going to make for killer snowboarding, we had come this far and we weren't turning back. 

Starting up

The middle sure was scoured...

About as far as we could make it on snow
The Grand in the background

We made it from trailhead to the top in almost five hours exactly.  And although the descent was anything but blower, it was still a super fun and picturesque line.  Hopefully Ill make it back there with better snow conditions, if not this year then next...

Maria on the descent!