TR: Spring in Greater Yellowstone

Well, with temps pushing into the upper 80's in Bozeman the past few days, I think I'm ready to throw in the towel on skiing serious lines this season. Here's a look back at a spring season filled with corn, powder, bears, baby bison and lots of great days in the mountains.

(However, I wrote up an individual TR for the South Teton from April here: http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...ir-South-Teton)

On a cold morning back in April, we skied a steep, aesthetic line in the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness. A 3 AM wake-up had us up in the alpine a little after dawn.

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Y, what a beautiful line!

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Booting up the East Branch

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Big views in Big Sky Country

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Those mountains out yonder sure look Crazy...

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Steep

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The summit of Black Mountain offers significant vertical relief above its surroundings, with over 5k of vert gained between the trailhead and the summit.
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"For Grand Rugged Scenery I know of no portion of the west that surpasses this range." -Ferdinand Hayden

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The mighty Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness

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Moo

The Eastern Branch of this couloir wasn't skied until July of 1995, when a group of skiers made the first descent. They described it as, "sixty degrees for the first three turns then solid fifty." We agreed.
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Looking back up

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Admiring our work

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One last look back

Mount Moran

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"The summit has never been attained and probably never will be, as the last 3,000 feet of the mountain are sheer perpendicular walls of rock." -Scientific American, 1919

In mid May I made my way back to the Tetons to take a stab at Mount Moran and the mighty Skillet. Most people opt to canoe across Jackson Lake to get to the base of Mount Moran. Those people are smart. Instead, we hiked/bushwhacked from the String Lake trailhead to the base of the Skillet. It wasn't an overtly hard approach, but hiking the 5-6 miles back out after skiing the Skillet the next day was quite taxing. We set up camp just below the snow line that night in anticipation for an early start come morning.

The alarm sounded at 1 AM sharp. I never really fell asleep that night, and was not feeling well rested for the task at hand. Oh well. The first few hours were spent in the dark, quietly climbing beneath the light of the Milky Way. We were just about at the base of the handle by the time the sun came up, and I wasn't feeling good. Lack of sleep and a subpar breakfast were taking their tolls on my body. We stopped to take a fairly lengthy break at that point, as the snow was bulletproof and the sun was still low in the sky. I tried to eat some food but I was having difficulty stomaching anything. Growing doubts about summitting began to cross my mind, but at least the sunrise had been beautiful. I only took a few iPhone shots of the sunrise, as my camera was buried in my pack and lacked the willpower to stop and dig it out. I find there's often a direct correlation between how shitty I feel backcountry skiing and how many photos I take.
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I somehow managed to rally and ultimately topped out on the summit of Mount Moran around 8:30. I still felt like shit, so I didn't loiter long.
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Panorama looking South

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Asgard

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The Grand

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Leigh Lake

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We ended up timing the corn cycle just about perfectly, and it was great corn for most of the 5,000'+ descent.
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Looking down from the top.

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About halfway down the Handle

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Yummy

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Milking that runout zone

I've never skied a line with as much sustained fall line skiing as the Skillet. Certainly a worthy objective, even if it has been skied a million times. Can't beat 5.5k of sustained 35-45 degree skiing!
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Bye Bye Skillet

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Death March Time...

There were lots of other great days that didn't involve pushing our bodies to the brink.
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Driving to the snowline is fun!

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This baby buffalo looks cold, maybe we should put it in our car?

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Wet slides aren't the only hazards round these parts...

Beartooth Pass

Even though the snowpack in the Beartooths was thin this year, there were still some fun skiing to be had the past couple of weekends. We camped in Rock Creek opening weekend and enjoyed more vehicle assisted skiing. We woke up to a moose next to our campsite the next morning.
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We soon headed up the Beartooth Highway, but to our dismay found that the road was temporarily closed at the state line. So, we headed out across the plateau and lapped the Rock Creek Headwall a few times.
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The area reminded me of Hillman's Highway a little.
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Rock Creek Headwall

The weather was much better the following day, and the pass was completely open. A fantastic corn harvest ensued.
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Summer Vacation

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Top of the Gardner Headwall

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Gardner Headwall

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Hitch-Hiking life

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Couloir Hunting

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I returned this past weekend to get some quality June Skiing in on some other road side attractions.
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PC: My Uncle

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Well, it's been a hell of a season. Time to go hike.
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lookin good out there.

Beautiful day on Black, nice combo of objectives you got done this year. That bear pic is rad. Running into one of those on some predawn spring ski mission=gonna have a bad time!

excellent

Nice work on the Y!

Approved.


Thanks for sharing!!!

Great stuff. Thanks for the stellar pics.

Well done. Baby bison: good play...

Great read, well done! Rad pics-

Refreshing!

Leave the baby alone though!!

Awesome pictures and really cool lines! I really don't get how people complain about lack of stoke on the boards, this definitely got me stoked and wishing we had some better weather.

favourite view of the bunch:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ted26

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Awesome, 5 stars.