May 13
White Pine parking out Bells
I went on a long tour with Launce, Mark and Gambrelli. It was the hotest day of the year to date.
Launce has an interesting description of the tour.
"So MC, gumby and I were auditioning for a TV reality show starring wow, somewhat analogous to Ted Nugent's Ted or Alive whereby a bunch of folks go touring with the Wizard and the slowest whining-ist party members get voted off the tour one by one."
You can read the post here.
Mark and g were interested in skiing on Saturday. It'd been getting warmer for several days and I hadn't skied since Thursday, a beautiful day in the mountains.
The weather forecast indicated a warm day was in store. The planning included bringing a pair of hiking shoes, just in case the refreeze was enough to stay out for a longer tour. Launce called Mark and joined up.
We found a supportable base at the traihead, so we packed the sneakers.
On the ridge,
we learn g has foot problems, probably from the damned at setup, she's using to save weight?, but vitamen I is administered and she continues up the Pfeifferhorn. We ski the sw face,
softening nicely at 11 am
in the morning sun.
G does a shorter line, we meet back up after she naps, feeling better. We're headed for Bells.
The day heats up, skins get wet and heavy, with trail breaking a chore. MC doesn't care, he's in training for a hundred mile foot race, near the end of summer. I don't care either, likely a good contestent for the motor city madman's reality tv show.
There's a few ups and downs prior to reaching the top of Bells and Thunder bowl,
traversing along the top of Lightning ridge. The last section involves a little scrambling, cuz the snow has already melted out.
The trad gear works well enough to achieve the top of Thunder,
the valley spread out below.
A ski cut offa the top produces a shallow wet slide, requiring a traverse onto lower angled slopes. Rollers and mank follow as we decend towards snowline.
Sticking wirh the north facing and using recent wet slide activity as islands of safety, we only start a coupla small slides to flatter ground
The snow ends at the upper bench where we meet two hikers, somewhat surprized to see us. They've left a trail through the snow patches, allowing us to put the tennies on for the hike down and out.
Neglecting to place a car at the trailhead, it's another mile or so back to the park and ride lot. I went ahead and got my truck, picking up the others along the road, leaving them at the lower lot. Keys forgotten, hitchhiking back up canyon to retrieve the other cars, done after I ditched um, late for an appointment with perspective tv show producers, hell bent on making a pilot for yet another reality show.