sawtooth mountains: mcgown peak

That night in Stanley was cold and clear, dropping down to near 10 degrees. We slept in the rafting guides bunk-house again and woke up early. In time to enjoy the sunrise, and coffee with the view from Scott’s backyard.

With the quality snow we had found in “The Sickle”, at upper north facing elevations, we figured we’d continue with that course. The large north couloir off of McGown is highly visible from the highway and fit the criteria. The one big issue this time of year is access. The road to Stanley Lake is paved and free of snow, but it’s 3.5 miles each way. Not a huge deal, but bikes would be nice.

Continuing to crush as the host with the most, Scott wrangled up five bicycles of varying model, vintage, and functionality.

I ended up with a blue beach cruiser to match my skis.

Excellent mode of transportation!

Once we hit the lake we switched to shoes and or boots and followed some nice trails to the creek.

From there we followed some old tracks up through the trees and traversed into a gully that led to the upper basin. And just like the day before, the higher we went, the more the snow quality improved.

Trout the dog was fun to have along. He handled the long approach and steep terrain with little problem.

Conditions were pretty similar to the day before, but the chute wasn’t as continuously steep. Chason topping out to the clicks of the shadowed paparazzi.

Picnic in the saddle on a sunny bluebird=hard to beat!

Then we skied it. Will Cardamone had completely pussed out and decided to go fishing of all stupid things (sorry, I’ve never fished, but walking around in the water torturing fish is lost on me). In his place we picked up Nathanial Murphy, another Jax local. He went first and completely flashed the line like you see in the movies. We were really surprised and just looked at each other jaws dropped at how ridiculously easy he had made it look. I felt really old.

Chason went next hurling himself over the rocky entry.

The powder was good enough I thought that it warranted some “me-pole” GoPro footage. No face-shots, but really good for mid April in a low snow year.

Clubber working the tele turns on the apron.

Our timing was great. The snow was slow, but not yet mush. And there was enough of it to ski all the way to the valley floor. We took a nice beer break back at the bike cache and did our best to entertain Trout with the tossing of the stick. After almost 30 miles and over 8K feet in two days the possessed beast barely slowed down.

Will and Chason decided to continue on to AK, and the group disbanded.

I wanted to look at a remote peak in the area, but my guess was that there was still too much snow and dead-fall to access it. So, I headed home to tune up the moto and chainsaw for a possible return trip next week.