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Topic: April 6, 2008, West Granite - NW/S slopes (Read 1224 times)
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trumpetsailor
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Posts: 666
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Some folks head to church on Sundays; I head for the hills. With a weighty decision on my mind and the need to repent for having eaten two chicken fried steaks at Ken's (exit 34 - cheap, good, and plentiful) last night, a trip to the NW side of the Granite massif seemed like the ticket.
Left the parking lot at the wee hour of 10:30, scurried up and off the trail to W Granite and topped out at ~1:30 not long after a large group of competent trackbreaking snowshoers had vacated the summit. Skied some of the mellowest terrain I could find toward Olallie Lake. Deep, luscious, soft, and a little heavy. Exaltations to deities followed me down. Followed the snowshoers' _steep_ track back up for a lap to home. Lots of hemming and hawing about stability on SE-SW facing slopes commenced. My selected line wasn't quite as mellow, from a slide danger perspective, as I'd hoped. After skiing the bowl, I managed to traverse all the way to meet the main avy path, nullifying the need to negotiate unpleasant creek crossings. Skied to less than a ski-pole length from the car. Saw fresh tracks all the way down the chute (I added some to its midsection). The lower sections of trail won't be terribly skiable much longer. Pretty wet day.
Snow: Wet and heavy down low. In the morning, at least, sheltered W/SW facing aspects held 6-15" of nice, if wet, powder above ~3600'. NW facing slopes from 5500' to ~4k had good to excellent snow. I wasn't totally sold on stability (the bond of the older powder to the crust below didn't seem perfect), but no motion beyond small sluffs. S/SW facing slopes 5500-4200' held moderately heavy powder atop an older crust - nothing so distinct as to be a "whumpf", but the snow was talkative. Below 3500 on the way home - variable forms of delectable slurpee. Also of note - it snowed on and off all day, with sunbreaks in between - winds SW becoming NW 5-15. A ski cut at ~4.2k got a tiny slide (15' wide x 25' run) of today's new (2-3") to run on today's suncrust. Every other slide path cut produced nothing but wee sluffs
Edit: Pics added, accuracy increased.
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Dicey
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Posts: 18
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Nice to have (briefly) met you up there today!
I was the slowshoer jealous of your skis, and wishing I had brought mine.
Glad you enjoyed your day.
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trumpetsailor
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Posts: 666
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Hope you guys had fun too - from your downtrack, it looked like not enough of you ran down/snowshoe teled the powder!  . I liked your route up from the backside to the ridge - it was safer than mine today. Did you come in from the Talapus trailhead or Granite's?
If a quick analysis of your flickr account is correct, then I believe you're in the first photo above.
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Dicey
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We did have fun, thanks!
Yep, that's me in the first pic, with the black dog behind.
We came in from the granite TH today, although I did this trip from the Talapus TH a month ago as well (longer).
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Zap
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Posts: 1001
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Those chicken fried steaks certainly fueled your adventure. I was addicted to those while attending college in Texas. I'm skiing corn and you're still skiing powder. 
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trumpetsailor
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Posts: 666
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There's very little out there that can top a chicken fried steak after a long hard day. Jan's, in Buena Vista, CO, makes an excellent one.
As for corn, I'm ready for it. The variable stability I encountered didn't make me a happy camper. April is thought provoking. We'll have plenty of corn for you when you get back!
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