The Exploration of Broken Top
So, as some of you may remember from Trip Reports past, we have this incredible playground here in central Oregon called "Broken Top."
Broken Top sits across the way from Mt. Bachelor, some 5-6 miles to the north of the resort as the crow flies. It is the remains of what was apparently one of the highest peaks in the range at one point, an estimated 12,000 ft, rivaling Mt. Hood - until it blew its top in a Mt. St. Helen's-like explosion. Unlike the Mt. St. Helen's of today, however, time has exposed the underlying resistant rock in the blown-out crater, leaving behind a wild landscape of cliffs, pinnacles, outcroppings, and couloirs.
Over the last year or so, I've begun to explore this backcountry playground, sometimes solo, but often with one of my chief co-conspiritors, Eric. Eric is, to be brief, quite a character, and an incredibly cool guy. When I'm feeling lazy or complacent, it's usually Eric - or the thought of Eric - that gets me out the door and into the mountains. I don't know how he pulls it off, but I swear the guy rides nearly every day, and every day he is just as super stoked to be alive and out there as the time before.
Anyway, last season we had a brilliant mid-winter day up on Broken Top during a sunny dry spell in February. In an epic daylight-to-dusk effort (complete with total bonkage at the end of the 3 hour tour back out), we took down the SW Face.
Now we find ourselves in the midst of a similar pattern. Skies have been clear and sunny, and the temps for the last week and a half have risen into the 40s and 50s, while overnight lows are still down in the 20s and teens. Coverage is good, and the Pacific Northwest corn factory is running a third shift. If you've never skied backcountry PacNW corn in the early summer, you're truly missing out on one of the greatest joys of skiing. There have been times after completing one of the many 4,000+ ft vertical, 35-40 degree pitch descents in the PacNW in the middle of July that I'd argue that it's better than powder. It's that good.
Anyway, after a week and a half of production, the local crop was primed for the harvest. And harvest we did. Last week Matty and I climbed up the gut of Broken Top while Eric climbed and skied a neighboring spur so that he could shoot stills and a little video.
Yesterday I logged on to his website to see a video frame grab from his day out with our mutual friend Kate, who has returned to skiing after a decade-and-a-half long hiatus and is killing it in her first full season skiing since childhood. And when I went to the site, in addition to a cool shot of Kate in the aplenglow, low and behold there was a helmet-cam frame grab from the top of The Hourglass, and then another looking back up from the bottom.
That rat bastard had dropped one of the lines I'd been drooling over since I moved here 3 seasons ago! Never mind that he'd already done it before. Never mind that I was at work anyway. Two days ago he'd hit it, and I wasn't there. Well, I quickly determined to get up there and check it out as soon as possible.
We had made vague plans to ski the SW Face this weekend, as Eric was thinking of skiing in Friday night and sleeping out. (No mention of his recent conquest while we were talking, mind you.) So, assuming that he was already out there last night, I got up at 5am this morning, and hit the road. The light was just coming up, and the sun began to crest the eastern edge of the world as I neared the Bachelor parking lot. Pink and orange hues blended into the receeding darkness, giving me the inspiration to gear up in the cold morning air.
I was the 3rd car in the lot. I knew the temps would climb dramatically as soon as the sun crested the foothills, and the 6 mile skin in was sure to get the blood pumping as well, so I dressed in a t-shirt and shells only, and got on my way. For the first 10 mins, I was fucking freezing. But I wasn't about to stop and throw on my emergency puffy, oh no. The taunting I'd get if phUnk saw me sporting one of those would be simply too much to bear. "Hey Cleeeeeetus, where's your jib rag? Hey Cleeeeeeetus, how's that corked 7 rodeo ballgrab coming?" No, I was determined to let the snot run right down from my nose and on to my overly thin Helly Hanson shell to spite him. And it did. Ran all over the place.
Much to my suprise, 2 hours later I was at the base of climb itself, wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and with my pants unzipped at the sides. Not that my clothing suprised me - I'd put them on by myself today - but rather, that I'd managed to cover the distance that quickly. It was 8:30am. I looked around for Eric as I passed his usual bivy spots, but didn't see or hear him. So I climbed, skinning determinedly to a point far higher than was probably efficient, as a direct result of having chosen to leave my crampons at home, and wanting to have something with metal edges to grab onto the as-yet unsoftened snow. My braces wouldn't have cut it, so the skis stayed on. My approach speed had damned me in this regard - an hour later and I would have been bootpacking.
I determined to go slower to allow for more warming, but found it hard to do, as I was already flailing around mightily, much to the delight of the local snafflehound (squirrel) population. Blam! Sniper! I grinned to myself as I imagined that snaffle's little smirking face smeared all over that guy's pretty little climbing boots. Hey wait, what guy? Dammit, there was someone else up there with me. And he was ahead of me. I determined to stop flailing as much, and pick up the pace. An hour and a half later, I was nearing the top, and the climber had dissapeared from sight, having already summitted and begun his descent. Magnanimous fucking show-off.
I finished the climb, topping out some 4 hours after I had begun. It was 10:30am, and Eric was nowhere in sight. I sat down to dry out my skins and eat some processed, sliced, and packaged dead cow, tucked between two factory manufactured grain derivatives, greased with a white substance expressely designed by The Man to give me heart attacks at an early age, all while starting out at the vast beauty of the central Oregon landscape.
Below me and to the right was the SW Face, the proposed route for the day. But just over that little knob there to the left and down was the Hourglass. I'd never done it before, and that pretentious ass had done it again without me two days ago. And he was nowhere in sight. The Hourglass was east facing after all, and I could do it before it got too late and then do another lap with Eric to hit the SW Face if he were down there in the bowl...
20 mins later I was gearing up above the offending timepiece. 10 minutes beyond that, and I was grinning like an idiot, carving massive turns in the perfect corn, spraying BB-sized grains of snow behind me as I ran out the apron. With the exception of some rather annoying patches of thinly wind-deposited transport, it was sublime. A little move to get in, steep but not too steep at the top, perfect pitch through the middle as it narrowed, fast through the finish, and smooth as a 10-year-old soccer player's ass. Err... Did I say that in my outloud voice?
I turned to look back up at my handiwork...and spotted Eric, bootpacking up the adjacent slope. I slowed, and shouted to him. He turned, and then everything happened in slow motion. No, wait, no it didn't. He lost his footing and before I knew what was happening, had rocketed down 20 yards through the snow before self-arresting. Uh...sorry dood.
"You okay man?" I shouted over, traversing towards him.
"Fuck. Fucking FUCK!"
One ski had been dropped at the apex, the other had slid down most of the way to him.
"FUUCK."
I neared, still a bit below where he'd ended up.
"You okay?"
"Fine. Annoyed, but fine. Well, except that I just sliced my finger entirely open on my edge, and I'm bleeding profusely. And I have no skin left on my elbows or my knees." Like me, Eric had been climbing in a t-shirt. Unlike me, he also been climbing in shorts. Shorts that I'd wished I had at the time. Corn can be brutal in a fall.
After prescribing and self-administering a bit of medicine for his various ailments, we picked up the pieces and clicked back in for the skin out to his snomo. Today was not his day to ski, apparently. We cruised back to the wilderness boundary, eyeballing and discussing the various lines we wanted to hit in the cirque above, and eventually arrived back at the sled. He graciously offered to tow me out, saving me from having to make the return 6 mile journey after a solid day of work.
He dropped me off near the nordic center, right in front of a family of 5, out for a pleasant little weekend snowshoe, looking for all the world like a bat out of hell - roaring up in his full face helmet, blood dripping from his finger, skin missing from his arms, evil grin plastered to his face. We said our goodbyes, and then I threw my helmet off, shaking my ass-long golden hair out for the benefit of the family. My hair, it is perfect, no?
45 minutes later, and I strolled out of the Taj back in town, loaded with as much Indian food as can be packed into a $4.95 carry-out box. Let me tell you, it's a lot. Trust me, my ass stinks worse than my cat's right now, and I ate less than half of the box. That stuff is going to last for days!
Now I sit here at Timmy's house, where I'm taking care of his dogs while he and his special lady friend are touring in the Wallowas. How cool is that? Of me, I mean. Well, I guess I'll just have to go check up on his hot tub and make sure it's working correctly. Maybe have one of these Black Butte Porters while I'm at it too, to make sure they haven't spoiled.
Catch you later, perhaps.
Cletus
