August 5, 2007, Sholes Glacier

Lorne and I crossed the border before the weekend crowds and were ready to leave the Artist Point parking lot by 9:00. The weather forecast was dead wrong ,at least until late afternoon. I was hot in my traditional summer clothes (long underwear and shorts).Approximately one hour from the car, we saw Andy Martin on one of his runs. We were less interested in total volume of vertical feet and more in touring less traveled country.

By 1200 we sitting on the eastern edge of the Portals. Following a lunch that included some fine Australian plunk, we were dropping down the Sholes Glacier. Back on the Ptarmigan Ridge trail again, we carried our skis to the top of the Pinnacle's southern snowfield. After another short carry, we arrived back at Andy's playground. We got a mile long ride from there. Still another short carry took us to the top of our last run; about 3/4 miles of skiing to the Ptarmigan trail, a short distance from its starting point. Cold ones in the car kept us going; we were enjoying them by 5:00. We had hiked about 10 miles and had skied close to 3 miles. we still managed to get over 2,000' of vertical.