Some Good Luck
March 8th, 2009Posted in Skiing in the Tetons
Yesterday, I couldn’t resist the lure of a day old snowfall covering the Tetons and a bright sunny morning. I decided to do the long trudge up South Leigh Canyon to reach Beard Mountain and its gorgeous powder fields. From the parking area to the base of the mountains it’s a 2-1/2 to 3 miles slog, and then the climbing begins. I was maybe a 1/4 mile from the parking area when I heard a snowmobile coming up behind me and slowing down. It stopped beside me and the driver asked, “Want a lift?” He was towing a skier, but he had a long enough tow rope to share with me, so I gladly grabbed on and saved myself an hour of approach time.
Once we got to the wilderness boundary and parked the snowmachine, my tow rope partner suddenly exclaimed, “Damn, I forgot my skins!”
My new friends then had to restart the snowmachine and head back home to retrieve the forgotten climbing skins. If he had discovered his error in the parking lot, I would not have gotten the time saving tow. My good luck, alas, not theirs.
Amazingly, Beard’s wonderful snow fields offered a couple thousand vertical feet of untracked snow in every direction. For some reason, Beard was unusually deserted. With the exception of a group of skiers from the Rendezvous Backcountry Tour’s nearby yurt, just two other skiers were on their way up the mountain by the time I reached the top. When the yurt group headed northwest, leaving me the entire west facing bounty, I was faced with the problem of deciding which of the thousand acres of untracked to sign with my skis.
Rendezvous Backcountry Tours yurt group on the summit
The snow was delicious enough for more than one descent.
Later in the afternoon, by the time I had slogged my way half the distance to my car on the flat access trail, I heard a snowmachine coming up behind me again. Would I get lucky twice? Yup.
Beard's Bounty: lightly treed, open snowfields, 2000 vertical feet, 8"-12" of new snow
Yes, I was solo backcountry skiing, usually something to avoid, but the posted avie danger was low and where I was skiing is a place where the avie danger is usually negligible, so I accepted the low risk and made sure my wife knew where to bring help if I didn’t show up, in case of injury.
View from my lunch spot
Evan commented:
nice! gettin’ after it! you’ll have to take me up there next time I’m in town.
didn’t realize there was a Yurt up there either, sweet.
snowman commented:
The skiing there is usually good through April and into May. We’ll do it.