Lambslide Couloir, Longs Peak (Mt Meeker)
Another weekend passes and another storm comes with it. Time for some more skiing and the start of my 14th consecutive month. I missed out last month on both Conundrum and Fletcher trying make October my 13th straight month of couloir skiing and so after seeing a few pics of some friends climbing in the Longs Peak zone, I had a pretty good idea of where to head next. So I reach out to find some partners for the day when Cody Pipkin and Eric Lovely jump on board. Time for some fun (hopefully)! The storm front brought anywhere from 2-12" of new snow across the state with Steamboat being one of the favored zones and so I was expecting a decent amount of snow in the Park as well. This being my major concern with the line was the bonding of the new snow.
After arriving at the TH we noticed there wasn't much new snow that had fallen in the area which in return ended up being to our benefit. I think that if there had been over a foot of new snow in the couloir we probably wouldn't have skied it.
Eventually we found ourselves atop Mills Glacier and looking up our line. There was a climbing party ahead of us that set a short bootpack to Alexanders Chimney and from there I set a fresh booter to the top of Lambslide. The climbing conditions were variable with the climbers right hand side holding a mix of shallower new snow and summer near the bottom. As you got higher the snow got deeper until I was wallowing in knee deeps on the top 1/3 of the line. 4.5hrs later and finally on top a stellar 1,000ft fresh (mostly) November couloir!
Once on top of the line I was jonesing pretty hard to hit it. I yelled down at Eric and Cody to find a safe spot and shortly after strapped in and dropped in on the goodness!
A smile from ear to ear! Then it was Eric's turn.
Followed by Cody. Unfortunately, he didn't have any crampons but he still managed to make it up half way. Props to him making it that far on some of that summer snow!
What a great day in such a beautiful cirque! November 4th and we are skiing some couloir pow. Gotta love it!!
I snapped a few shots of the 2 climbing parties we saw as well.
I snapped a few shots of the 2 climbing parties we saw as well.
I'm not sure what this party was climbing.. maybe Fields Chimney?