The Issues TR

3/24

Late night last night means I can't pull myself out of bed, the lack of an idea of where I was going that day is also a factor. I'd SO wanted to do some slide skiing because it was perfect weather for it. The previous plan was to hit the finger slides on Dix mountain for some epic north facing descents. Unfortunately I couldn't come up with a partner, I tossed and turned all night debating what to do and finally decided at 1 am to bag it, but that still left me the dilemma of where to ski. Restful sleep was not an option as I run through the list of options. I'm such a "plan" guy that winging it was driving me insane, I didn't even put my gear together the night before I was so frazzled. :roll:

Of course that led to me oversleeping because I was up too late debating where to go and as of 6:30 am I still had NO idea what the heck I was going to be doing that day. Finally in a fit of frustration I decide to grab my gear and head north, figuring that I'd probably just wind up at K or Pico and deal with the fact I'm going to be parking in Bay 423,482 cause I'm so late :wink: . Out I go but as I approach Manchester I happen to glance over at Mt Equinox and immediately think of the slide that I've REALLY wanted to go ski for 4 years now.

Drawn like a moth to the flame, I pull off and begin driving towards the mountain. I'd pieced together bits of beta over the years but I really have NO clue what I'm doing. To my surprise I manage to find the access point I was looking for and gear up beside a bunch of dog walkers who give me strange looks as I pull out my ice ax, crampons, skis, skins and other assorted touring paraphernalia.

http://www.killingtonzone.com/albums...6/IMG_1636.jpg

I know I'm going to have to hustle given that the temperatures are hovering around the freezing mark and I've got NO idea how long its going to take to get to my objective. The skin up on the blue summit trail is fairly uneventful but takes FAR longer then I'd anticipated. Its almost 2 hours before I reach the first sign of what I'm looking for.

http://www.killingtonzone.com/albums...6/IMG_1637.jpg

What may look like a PVC pipe with water coming out of it to the causal eye, is actually a clue that you're close to a slide and I detour accordingly, exchanging skis for crampons and starting to follow the stream uphill. Unfortunately the snow had already softened and I started to punch through which makes the bushwhacking even harder. Adding insult to injury after about 20 minutes of hard climbing through the slush, I intersect the blue summit trail and realize that I just spent 15 useless minutes wallowing in the snow when I could have just skinned up the trail for 5 minutes and I would have been in the same spot :roll: so I exchange crampons for skis :wink: and continue hiking. And a short while later I come to what is most definitely the base of the slide. I detour off the trail once more and pick my way through the open trees of the stream bed. After about 10 minutes I'm faced with an unsolvable problem.
http://www.killingtonzone.com/albums...6/IMG_1638.jpg
A 8' icefall!!!!!

I have crampons and an ax but I've never tackled anything like this, never mind that I'm solo. My first thought is to try to skirt the icefall but the trees are impassable on either side. My next thought is to return to the blue trail, attempt to summit, then find the slide from the top, but that leaves me with the dilemma of both not being able to asses the slide from bottom up, and the snow quality is already deteriorating in the warmth and I have no idea how close I am to the top.

So I decide to ski down the stream bed back to the pipe and then descend via the trail back to my car. The first 10 turns are perfect, then I begin to get closed out by the trees. Moving downward begins a steady decline from linked turn to jump turn to kick turn to sideslip to traverse. As I get lower and lower the snow gets worse and worse, rotting before my eyes. I keep moving right to find the shadier aspects and the better snow but the pitch gets steeper and the trees tighter(think Vertigo headwall steepness with Cathedral spacing)

After what seems like an eternity of kick turns and sideslips, I look up to see that I've dropped 200 feet BELOW the pipe :x and a looking at having to climb this to get back
http://www.killingtonzone.com/albums...6/IMG_1641.jpg

I weigh my options and decide to traverse left hoping to intersect the blue trail somewhere lower on the mountain, but after a 10 minute bushwhack I reach an impenetrable thicket that blocks my progress. At this point I'm fried; so I decide to sit down, rest, and evaluate my options.

Option 1 is to traverse back through the semi-penetrable bush to the stream bed and attempt to climb it back to the pipe. Option 2 is to continue heading down and left hoping to find the way out.

I chose option 1 and decide to put skins on and take a higher traverse hoping to bisect the stream bed higher up but again I'm thicketed out and have nowhere to go but up.

I can see the stream bed and I know if I parallel it I'll arrive at my destination. But its a LONG way up through tight bush and scrub. Taking my skis off is NOT an option as the snow has began to rot out and I don't think having them on my back through the scrub is going to be very productive. I begin picking my way uphill where I reach an unpleasant realization that the slope is too steep to skin and too tight to do a kickturn. Knowing that I cannot gain traction with my skins and that a slide here would be chancing injury, I stop to consider my options again, but this time there is no other option but up. I attempt to grab a tree branch but its too far out of reach. Almost immediately the light bulb goes off in my head. If I could just reach my ice ax on my pack I could use it as a grappling hook and pull myself up, or use it as an anchor when kickturning. A quick reach and the ax is in my hands. I hook a sizable branch and begin the task of moving forward. Its a slow and arduous process, plant poles, hook branch, move forward and up, kickturn, establish platform, plant ax, move poles and repeat.

looking down
http://www.killingtonzone.com/albums...6/IMG_1643.jpg

Finally I reach the pipe and the trail but I encounter a new problem
http://www.killingtonzone.com/albums...6/IMG_1644.jpg

I'm about 3 feet underneath the trail but I have NO more trees to use and I can't get the ice ax to bite to enable me to pull myself up to the trail. I have to throw my poles uphill, pull my skis off throw them uphill then attempt to kick steps into the rockface, but somehow I pull it off. I reach the trail and proceed to ski down it with only a few more run ins with downed trees and exposed rocks.

After such a momentous occasion the only thing one can do is hit the local hot dog stand for a brat with all the fixins
http://www.killingtonzone.com/albums...6/IMG_1646.jpg

3/25

After yesterdays tiring epic I decided to stay closer to home(that and the threat of being skinned alive by my wife after I recounted the previous days adventure).

The prospect of new snow above 1500 feet and drew me back to my usual haunt for yet another dawn patrol and once again it didn't disappoint.

I awoke to find NO snow in my front yard, which was not a good sign, I figured the weatherman had once again tempted me with false predictions of 3-6 inches, but this was going to be my 40th day and it'd be a shame to waste it as we only have a week or two left in the snowpack.

I begin to see dusting's of snow on the way over and pulled in to discover 3 inches of wet gloppy snow just as the weatherman predicted

http://www.killingtonzone.com/albums...6/IMG_1648.jpg

Again all was quiet so I took a leisurely pace up to the top snapping pictures the whole way

http://www.killingtonzone.com/albums...6/IMG_1647.jpg

coverage was once again excellent, and the clouds breaking in and out were absolutely breathtaking.

http://www.killingtonzone.com/albums...6/IMG_1649.jpg
http://www.killingtonzone.com/albums...6/IMG_1654.jpg

I was expecting some of the worst snow ever given the fact that we'd had a rain, a snow, a freeze, and then a thaw but I'd have to say that todays turns were THE BEST I'd had all year.

The base was frozen solid, then the top layer had softened and mother nature had thrown a nice frosting over it all meaning it was full on rippable from top to bottom. Total hero snow conditions.

http://www.killingtonzone.com/albums...6/IMG_1658.jpg

Again a leisurely stroll back up the hill stopping to take pictures the whole way.
http://www.killingtonzone.com/albums...6/IMG_1668.jpg

http://www.killingtonzone.com/albums...6/IMG_1667.jpg

Due to my lallygagging, I realized I'd only have time for one more run so I decided to punch into the trees. After some uneventful turns I found myself in a weird realm of clouds and branches, I begin looking around for signs of the familiar. I'd skied this line before and I knew where I had to be, but nothing looked right. Visibility had dropped to 10 feet or less, and I began to move in different directions attempting to find some landmark that would show me the way out, but there was nothing but trees. Realizing that I was short on time I headed towards where I knew the main trail had to be. Finding that I began heading uphill and realized that the fog was SO thick that I'd been standing on the skintrack 30 yards uphill from where I was now. Worried now about the time I pushed ahead but once again I became disoriented and missed the turn in the fog, backtracking I picked up the trail once more only to lose it again in the mist. At this point I KNEW where I had to go, and that finding the trail was superfluous so I pointed my skis uphill and climbed through yet another thicket until I reached my car, with only a few minutes left to spare I raced back home just barely making it to work.

as my wife put it "I have a lot of lost issues"

sickter, #2 looks money

I enjoyed that

That's it, I'm packing up and moving east.

I thought I was the only one that type of stuff happens to. When ever I am late from a ski or a ride my wife knows I went exploring, she doesn't even bother asking anymore because she knows she won't like the answer. Looks like a couple of good days.

Very nice Laser. Very nice.

excellent to read a tr from equinox. always spied that line growing up but never hit it. nice ambition and sorry it didn't work out for ya. i think you shoulda given it to the waterfall though. and them dyke dogs are pretty good eh?;)