May 28-30 Maple, Silver Star, Early Winters

Caution, this post is flooded with photos, family, and pure stoke! The whole family (and Andybrnr!) headed up route 20 for some good skiing fun this weekend! On Saturday, we started with a warm up to Maple Pass and saw some significant (and fairly recent) slide action.

Most impressive was the slab that scoured the entire face above Lake Ann and slammed into the Lake, cracking up the surface.

We ascended to the 6800ft knoll above Heather Pass and descended with reasonable stability and fine snow turning to mush very quickly. It was nice seeing some fellow TAYers up there too!

The next day we were up bright and not-so-early for our 9AM start on Silver Star. There were two other parties attempting the peak on Sunday (one party turned around on the traverse underneath Vasiliki ridge), and one party staying overnight on the mountain.

Of course no proper tour would start without a bit of adventure skinning!

Six thousand vertical feet later, a beaming Kyle (13 years old) boots his way to the summit.

After Ross (15) gets a bit of relaxation on the top, the Bretherton-Juggernaut party takes an endless descent back down to the car.


Conditions at the very top were loose and a bit heavy (could it really be powder???) quickly degrading to heavy glop down below. There were a few heavy sloughs, but only one of them went more than twenty feet. We followed another party out on the steep but relatively stable face on skiers right of the valley.
Finally, we hit the trees right before the thunder and rain really picked up.

And tight trees they were. Not to mention the lovely snow bridge we ended up crossing the creek on!



But were we finished? Absolutely not! Today Jeff took us up for a lap on Madison Avenue, and down the Early Winters Couloir.

It looks like part of the face slid last night into the lower sections of the couloir, making it unskiable. We looked for the alternate route out, but were forced to skin back with out tails tucked. Finally, Kyle ended the day by proving the couloir's unskiability by breaking a ski on the debris. Overall, a fantastic weekend and plenty of vert for all.

More Photos and a Video on the way!