March 4-8, 2018, Williams Pk Yurt

Idaho Sawtooths, near Stanley, Idaho. We visited the Williams Peak Yurt for a 4 night, 5 mile walk-in trip, and we had a fantastic time. We hired a porter for $160 to carry 50 pounds of group food and drink. This was a great bargin, and if we did it again, we might hire two porters! The mountains are every bit as rugged as our mountains. And high! The yurt sits at almost 8000 feet and we skied up to 9600 feet. There are named couloirs in every direction, none of which we skied, but it was really fun to look at them and fantasize. We had all kinds of avalanche hazard. Active buried layers, wind slab, and when the sun came out, we had wet loose too. We kept it pretty conservative. The party we met on our way out was carrying rope (12mm!?) and looked armed for steep skiing. We didn't even poke our nose in it. The yurt(s) sleep 16. We had 10. We skied mostly in three groups after trying an 8 person day and deciding that was too many. We explored one basing south and two basins north of the yurt and got to ski in storm and clear conditions with mostly powder, but some sun affected and some wind affected snow. It was a really great trip in an awesome spot. A worthy trip. Also, cost was low. It's $50/night per person, with an 8 person minimum. Pretty reasonable I think. Highlights:

jtack skiing powder. This kind of sums up how good it was.


Big Fatty Couloir. We didn't ski it. But man we wanted to!


yurt life


Williams Peak - and a posed point :)


Cold snow!


Another of Williams Peak. This is the mountain directly above the hut, and we are in the basin just north of the yurts.


so scenic!


some of that wet loose


and really fun terrain. We more than once had to go around or back up. This was one of those. It made the skiing exciting to not know for sure that the line went all the way through. (most of the time it did).




An inconvenience on the way home! (Not our fault)