Home > Trip Reports > January 1, 2012, Jove Peak

January 1, 2012, Jove Peak

1/1/12
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Posted by trees4me on 1/2/12 4:34am
Skinning in the New Year by 8am up Smithbrook.  Only one car ahead of us, and the snow looked very good on the way up.  We took the road much of the way to Rainy Pass, with a short trailbreaking workout thrown in for good measure.  We caught the group of XC skiers ahead of us and then it was all fresh tracks the rest of the day.

We were in a hurry to get to Jove, so we opted to ski down from the pass.  That was dumb, but smithbrook always seems to teach me something (that I promptly forget).

Started up Jove from the hairpin at the creek, snow was stable and we were stoked with the open treed terrain.  Even with setting a track in the deep snow, we made good time and finally gained the ridge.  Above treeline, the snowpack was very wind affected with hand pits revealing soft slabs formed by the new snow.  The shear plane was not very consistent, though at times we found 14-20" soft slab with a Q1.5 shear.  After some discussion we decided not to continue or ski the face.  We de-skinned about 2-300' shy of the summit and dropped the skiers left side of the face near the trees.  No instabilities were noted during skiing, though the snow in the open was noticably wind affected.

Super nice run, then a quick climb up to the pass and another great run back to the road.  2012 is sick!





Time to ski!


Jove from Rainy Pass. Our tracks lookers right.
Great restraint,  hard to pass up the whole shot.  Thanks for post, and pictures.

Sick!

Cool shot skinning through the trees. 

Looking at Jove today and couldn't see your tracks, but it sure looked nice.




We only missed out on 200-ft of vert, and had a really great run.  I thought it was probably stable for skiing, but my partner had concerns.  Our philosophy is not to push if the consequences of a mistaken evaluation are big.  Since we had a nice alternative run to the main face and we were observing persistent soft slabs, it was a pretty easy decision for us.  Another group may have chosen differently and likely been fine on the face.  :)

Such a good tour.  The nice thing about Jove is how many good options there are if that big open face isn't speaking to you.  The slopes down the backside toward Janus are always calling me, but I have yet to have time to add them onto a tour out there.

author=trees4me link=topic=23004.msg97883#msg97883 date=1325536487]

We were in a hurry to get to Jove, so we opted to ski down from the pass.  That was dumb, but smithbrook always seems to teach me something (that I promptly forget).



What was dumb about that? What did smithbrook teach you? Sorry I don't understand what the better option would have been. Please elaborate.

author=androolus link=topic=23004.msg97974#msg97974 date=1325640167]
What was dumb about that? What did smithbrook teach you? Sorry I don't understand what the better option would have been. Please elaborate.


Sorry, I didn't really explain.  Just route selection for the day.  Everytime I get to Rainy Pass I look back and say "next time I'm going a different way".  The road is long and flat, so taking the trees seems good except for when/where to turn up and the extra effort of setting a track in deep snow through the trees... 

We had to walk a bit to get all the way down to the road at the hairpin below Jove.  This could've been avoided, and I knew how but chose to ski from the pass instead.  We did Union Pk to Lake Janus about 5 years ago, and that was the last time I was back there.

Next time i'm hitting gunsight couloir to the hairpin.  8)

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trees4me
2012-01-02 12:34:47