Another good day in the peaks is in the books.

Saturday was another day of free vertical with tRoy, J-money, Ben, and James. We started at snowbowl and had some cars and some beers stashed out on 89 for the ride out. That already put us about 2000’ ahead at the beginning of the day at the base of the lifts.

However, we also scored a ride to the top in exchange for a detailed snow report for the KPAC website site.

That means we were almost 4000’ ahead when we finally started hiking.

I was feeling pretty good, as I had taken friday off the rollers and just done a quick 15 miles in sedona that afternoon/evening instead. My legs were fairly fresh, and I had 2 shots of espresso that morning at LFTT, so I was ready to rock and roll when we got to the top of the lifts. I threw the skis on the pack, and took off.

Unbeknownst to the other 4 in the group, I don’t drink coffee very often (maybe a couple times a week at the most). This immediately led to a small gap opening up behind my caffeine-fueled ascent. I stopped to take pictures on the way up at least twice in that 800 vertical feet, and still arrived about 5 minutes ahead of jeremy, and about 10 ahead of everyone else.

The inner basin once again came into view as we crested the ridge, and the buttery sun-softened, snow covered slopes of snowslide canyon opened up below us. After a quick break, we went about earning our lift ride up, and dug 2 large snow pits at the top of snowslide to evaluate avalanche danger and general snowpack conditions. After about 6 feet of digging, we pulled out the probes and realized that there was another 4 to go before we hit ground. At this point, we did a series of observations about the snowpack and a couple stability tests. Once we get all the data written up, I’ll link to a post on the KPAC discussion boards with the full detail.

We proceeded down through a couple of the couloirs on the north side of snowslide canyon and into the heart of the inner basin. Everyone took their turn carving a piece of the juicy, untouched, sun drenched spring skiing conditions and was all smiles by the time we hit the runout at the bottom of snowslide.

(doesn’t Ben look like he belongs on the cover of a magazine?)

We rocked down to the snotel weather station and had some lunch. At this point, the question was posed: What next?

As expected, a devious smile emerged on tRoy’s face, and he spelled out a plan to us with a distinct undertone of ‘since you asked. . . ’ and several reinforcements of ‘I’ve been wanting to do this for years’. This plan involved a chute called cliffband which comes of the south side of Aubineau Peak. It’s a chute that has a 100-200 foot cliff on the west side of it, and a 200 foot cliff at the top of it. With the great stability that we had observed on snowslide in any area that had been sunny, there was a good chance that we wouldn’t have to turn around due to avalanche danger. Even more importantly, there was a good chance that this south facing chute would be softened up enough to afford some great skiing.

The cliffband at the top of the chute was about 1.5 miles and 1600 vertical feet away. Since we hadn’t so much as put the skins on our skis yet that day, we started pondering the climb. Finally I piped up that if tRoy suggests a route and there is snow involved,you usually want to take that suggestion, and the decision was made. Skins were attached, lunches were finished, and the trek back uphill began. I started breaking trail though the woods, and as we approached the bottom of the cliffband we started catching a glimpse of what we were about to run right up the mouth of.

Cliffband was spectacular. There were chutes coming in from both sides in between 100-300 foot cliffs. The main chute was anywhere from 100-500 feet across, and the snow was nice and sticky from the sun hitting it. I took up the lead again, and was able to cut a skin track almost straight up it, with a minimum amount of switchbacks. We had set a cutoff time of 3:00 for turnaround, which left about 1:45 to make it as far as we could. With that goal in mind, I stomped the gas pedal, and tRoy, J-money and I pulled up under the upper cliffs at exactly 3:00.

Jeremy started down the main gulley first, and stopped about 1/4 of the way down to wait for tRoy and I.

tRoy and I had scoped out one of the chutes that came in from the west side of the gully, so after a bit more traversing, we made the switch into downhill mode and took our turn hitting what could possibly be a first descent of a small side chute into cliffband. At its narrowest point it was about 15 feet wide and flanked by vertical cliffs. As a result of that, it was filled with fluffy week-old powder from last weekend’s storm, which made for some great turns. Jeremy got some pictures of it, so once I get those from him, I’ll throw them up here.

On the way up, the snow had been in prime condition from the sun, but unfortunately, on the way down the sun ducked behind the cliffs, and the surface was starting to harden up because of it. Nevertheless, we still had a good time busting through the crust, occasionally taking a spill, and generally have a good time.

The rest of the ride out of cliffband and out of the inner basin was fairly uneventful, save the occasional fall as we all tried our best to power through the variable snow. We made good time, and were sipping beers at the cars by 5:45.

The final stats for the day were right around 13.5 miles of travel, 5000’ of climbing, and 7000’ of descent (the climbing does include the lift ride, which is about 1.1 miles and 1900’ of climbing).

Per usual, here’s the google earth overlay to take a peek at. There are some more pictures from my camera in the gallery. I’ll add in more from the rest of the crew when I get them.