
Due to a long and depressing warm spell and little to no snow, the Powder Wardens were scratching their collective heads for ideas of somewhere new to ski tour. All of our regular haunts were likely to be tracked out and the Wardens are a powder spoiled bunch. If our skis are making noise, we are most assuredly, not happy. So, maps were scanned, GPS was consulted and our sad and pathetic memories were searched for any hints of a new hill or valley that might possibly hold some deep snow. The dim flash of a firing neuron in Wolfgang's massive, but barely functioning brain, signaled a 15 year old memory of a hike in a valley that can not be named, and from here in shall be referred to as Valley X. A trip was planned.

Sleds were loaded on Friday night despite a forecast of warm, wet weather and Wolfgang, Dr. Goldfinger, Rex and Juice Terry departed at six AM heading South. Rain in the parking lot elicited thoughts of bailing, but as the Doctor always says, "If you don't go skiing, you won't go skiing". As a result, in a haze of filthy, stinking blue smoke belching from the leaky exhaust of Kermit, the three cylinder threat to the ozone layer, we roared off down the road. After a few wrong turns, three deeply stuck sleds and significant amount of doubt about the sanity of our mission, we stepped into our skis and started skinning up-hill. An hour and a half of wandering brought us into the alpine and our first misty views of our Valley-X. Things looked very promising indeed. However, cloud and drizzle dampened our enthusiasm, as we toured a high ridge line looking for decent descents. Eventually deciding on north facing bowls and faces we ski a couple of good runs in so-so snow that turns to shite after 500 vertical feet. With 2500 vert and 8 km of touring we reverse course back to the snow machines and head home impressed with our find but not at all sated.

Two weeks later we are back, little Cheecho replacing Juice Terry who was otherwise occupied. Slightly cooler temps and the promise of a little new snow motivated us as we sled up the bumpy logging road under clear blue skies. Our objective is to summit the obvious peak at the head of the valley. but we revise our plans after 5 km of touring when fog envelopes the peak. We decide to ski.


A 1200 foot line is picked out, and after a quick pit and an extended column test, we ski the top 500 feet in six inches of nice snow, then traverse over to a nice fall-line shot of 700 feet to the valley floor. Two turns in and the six inches turns to a foot of sweet pow, the best we've seen in weeks, and Wolfgang rips 50 turns to the bottom. After some shenanigans with a lost ski each of us finds his own line down, and we skin up and head out across the valley. Our path back to the top of the ridge involves some skinning, some boot packing and a few steps of mixed climbing to gain a thousand feet.


The next run starts further east on the ridge and nets us 500 feet of mellow bowl skiing, a small traverse under a cliff band and 400 feet more of steeps under the cliffs. Wolfgang is exhausted on the skin out of this one, but his physician assures him that one more is within his capabilities. So we choose our final line of the day, a bowl narrowing into a tree chute that rewards us with another thousand feet of the best snow of the day. Skins on, Dr. Goldfinger breaks trail up towards our original up-track. Wolfgang lags behind but eventually tops out and we head for the sleds. Nine hours after we left the trucks we roll in and load 'em up for the drive back to the

As requested by a faithful reader, I must also add a couple of pics of the Warden's pack of wild dogs Enjoy....


Great Job on the site man! Looking forward to reading it regularly!
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