Jeffrey and I were able to get out for a full day back in
late January for one of our favorite tours in the area – the bass bowl
bounce. After the typical 3 hour
approach to bass lake, we continued up north bass peak under unexpectedly
beautiful conditions. The top two
hundred or so feet of the E face had been hammered by the wind but we soon hit
great boot top powder and continued down to below the bass/kootenai
saddle.
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| NE face of smoky joe |
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| a beautiful morning at bass lake |
From there we climbed north to the saddle and then up the
groove tube, to have a look at the striking Spurge couloir. After skiing the upper hundred or so feet, we
didn’t like what we were seeing and feeling (the recent storm snow readily
sluffing with some propagation on a more pronounced crust than we had yet seen
that day) so climbed back out and continued east on the more moderate terrain
of the standard bowl bounce, finding mostly good powder conditions on the next
two runs.
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| spurge couloir from atop N bass peak |
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| stormy joe and big st joe from N bass peak |
By the time we crested the last climb atop lappi point, the
forecasted storm had arrived with howling winds and low visibility. We dropped into the lappi west bowl from the
top, largely by feel in the flat light conditions. All was going well on the egress til a
snowbridge broke below me over bass creek.
Fortunately I was unscathed but one pole and both of my skis just behind
the heel pieces broke in the fall (dynafit denalis, a ski with known breakage
issues). With a branch in one hand and
my remaining pole in the other, I was lucky enough to be able to snowplow and
ski out the remnants of my skis (with a whole bunch of extra tail rocker) the ~5miles of remaining trail to the car.
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| this tour largely consists of thousands of feet of mellow pow skiing |
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| the S face of big st joe holds several quality 3000ft runs |
We briefly crossed paths with brian who was egressing from a
speedy go at the pinball wizard and was nice enough to wait at the trailhead to
make sure I made it out safely on my compromised gear.
Obviously a bummer to break a pair of skis but flukes like
that do happen I suppose. Thankfully I
had put a lot of days on them over the last two and a half seasons so no use
being too upset.
Rose: catching this awesome tour in mostly powder conditions
for the second year in a row
Thorn: breaking my skis!
Bud: returning for the Spurge
Stats: about 9500vert
in 11.5 hours
