August 5, 2006, Panhandle Cirque, MRNP

For lack of a better name (or perhaps lacke of knowing the actual name), I called this trip Panhandle Cirque. Due to time constraints, we had to turn around at the foot of the fryingpan glacier. It looked really nice, and I'm still salivating for the turns that could have been. However the turns that we made were most enjoyable and worth the 4 mile hike to summerland.

There is no snow at summerland, and my normal route directly from summerland to meany crest was mainly devoid of snow. So we continued on the trail toward panhandle gap. The cirque appeared on the right. It is just to the south of Meany crest. I'm sure someone will give the right name for it. It had a couple of still skiable lines...though each had narrow spot to deal with. We climbed the most direct one in front of us. It turned out to be quite steep and I wished to own a whippet or to have brought an axe. Oh well. Upon reaching the top, we could see the fryingpan with a number of turns on it from previous days. It still looked most smooth.

At this point we turned around, my friends Rob and Jay skied the steep headwall, and I chickened out and skied down around the top of the ridge skiers right. I think I had the best snow since it was softer on the ridge due to aspect...as I imagined the fryingpan would have been as well. The small suncups in the cirque itself were a little bit too hard...but still quite fun.


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