FUN times

I had a few days of high pressure where I went out with a photographer from SUUNTO and we  took a lot of shots of yours truly. Some that came out pretty decent, its always a struggle to hide the dork inside. We even did some mountain biking, and some rock climbing.  The Selkirks are still prime for skiing so last thursday I headed out with Mark for a little session. Over the course of a 25 minute phone call we went from a 20 hour epic plan down to a 12 hour adventure and finally deciding on a quick 5 hour gnar session.

A few days ago he repeated the ramp line on Cheops that Joey and I skied earlier this year. It looked like great skiing and he was teased with some of the other lines that work their way down to the basin. So we headed up Cheops, the wind was strong and uncomfortable but our mission was quick so we accepted the blasts. Once up on the ridge we quickly put in a belay and Mark walked over the edge to look down.

He came back excited about what he saw. So I ventured to the edge and looked in and I was also energized. It looked great, and disappeared around the corner. As with any line figuring out where to stop and re-group, while keeping communication, is a challenge and especially with this one as it essed  its way down the mountain side.  Once Mark and I figured out how we would ski it, he headed in.

This was skied solo by Robert Quade 3 years ago and always teased me, it was so fun to finally be dropping in and working our way around the features. Just Mark and me shredding and watching out for our sloughs. Serious management for the first little bit.

Such an amazing place, ridges and lines that go off in all directions, yet such an obvious line to follow.  We followed the main couloir for a bit, it was steep and fun  but the snow had been affected by falling debris and wasn’t completely awesome. It was carveable though. The valley was also really far away.

Since we were in the guts of a couloir we needed to escape skiers right to get to a planar slope that would have better undisturbed snow. So we slid to the right and bammo…. wicked skiing. For this section we were able to really let it go and shred. Minimal sloughing followed, nothing big enough to catch us so we laid out some big turns and finished the run in style.

This is my third wicked run off of Mt-Cheops this season, all of them have been full on engaging skiing. This line is a worthy one, especially as a late season, lower motivation high intensity run.