The objective for the day was BrokenTop. I had skinned out to Moon Mountain last year and remembered the long boring slog in and back out. This year however was different...we had a sled in the arsenal so instead of a long boring skin it, it would be a quick ride to the wilderness boundary where we would unload and then skin up into the cirque.
John showed Trevor and I the beta for getting access to the area, and then led us in on the tour.
The views were outstanding! It was amazing as we crossed our way through rollers into the cirque as we slowly gained elevation. The weather was cooperating in that the skies were amazingly clear with views to the next state.
There was even a little bit of recent precip as mother nature treated us to about an inch of fresh snow.
We worked our way into the cirque and started to pick out the line for the day. With an aspect in mind, we continued our ascent which quickly steepened into some legit step cutting that required caution. We had 2 sets of crampons between the 3 of us...I was not fully prepared or aware that we would require crampons for the ascent. John handed me one of his crampons so we each had one crampon as we made our way up the sketch slope. It was slow going....a step had to be cut for every non-cramponed step...the wind was howling and blowing the fresh snow all over the place.
After a while, we hit the saddle and sat just below the cornice as we took the views in and tried to transition on a steep, slippery slope...a mis-step would have been a bit of a mood killer as the snow below the 1 inch of fresh was hard and slick...it would be a long slide back down into the cirque!
We all transitioned without incident and took turns heading down. The views just kept impressing as you looked in every direction. To the north, you could see Sisters, Washington, Jefferson, Hood, etc...to the South you could see all the way down to Thielsen, Diamond, and of course Bachelor.
My backside edge chattered into the hard snow below the fresh and it took a couple of turns to realize the best course of action was to be aggressive and focus on shallow S turns as opposed to deep S turns. In no time, we were back down in the cirque and once again taking in the views. It made the sketchy ascent on one crampon and ice ax worth it...ohh yeah, did I mention that it was the first time I had used crampons or an ice ax? I can only imagine how dreamy it will be with a crampon on each foot!
Round 1 of pictures:
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