new lead

        It feels so great to be out in the mountains again. Many long hard days to come but all so beautiful. Today was no exception, Roger’s pass was as beautiful as it gets. Great light all day and then some beautiful alpen Glow.

It may only be the second day of the season but I was interested in checking out a new mountain. Hermit Mt. It sits within 1.5 km of two summits I have skied from but somehow I knew nothing about it. Like most ten thousand foot peaks around here it is no gimme. 

Dave, Aaron and I broke out of the clouds around 10 am and from then on we had a gorgeous day. The summit of Hermit looked attainable and we stared at its ridge. If we stayed directly on the ridge it would be 5.5 but we hoped to bypass the cruxes on class 4 terrain.

We booted up to around 9500 feet and decided to turn around. Its hard to have confidence to bootpack up a 45 degree face on our second day of the season. The slope we were bootpacking up had slid during the last cycle and the first 400 feet was perfect booting. But then the slope steepened and Aaron looked into the snow. His compression tests showed that there was a moderate collapse with a clean shear down about 25cm. Deep enough and fast enough to make us worry. So we turned around and skied home.

It was such a perfect day for filming. Nothing epic but some nice touring footage and a few wicked deep turns.Dave’s first turns of the year looked awesome from my vantage point.  Great day except for the bottom 1500 feet which sucked. Melt freeze, barely covered rocks with sticks sticking out everywhere.

A bit of exploration and some new lead to trace on my maps.