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Day
One (continued):
On the summit of
9,190', we paused to admire the
views out over Maggies Peaks to Big Blue. After a
few minutes of discussing how lucky we were to be standing
in this beautiful spot, we each took turns dropping in.
Nate led the way.
Steeleman came next, followed by
Chris and
Mark on the boards. The snow was a little bit of
powder interspersed between huge sections of extremely
difficult breakable crust. Hey, nobody ever said bc skiing was
easy, right?
We got in radio contact with Sierra
Fred and Zeke. After skiing down to
Azure Lake, they had skinned back up to Janine Peak (Peak
9,579') via its SE bowl. We followed their tracks down
towards Azure Lake, then angled left to follow a natural halfpipe formed by a creek running down near the outlet to
the lake. At the top of this halfpipe was a steep
chute. Nate ripped down it,
gobbled up some powder in the choke, and then
arced out the bottom. Chris also made short work
of the chute
on his splitboard.
We
skinned back up to camp at around 3:30, looking forward to
some chill time in the warm sun. Sierra Fred had expertly
located our campsite on a rocky nub near the northern end of
Peak 9,190. The spot had sun all day, from the first rays
of light, to the gorgeous hues of sunset. I got back first
and found Charley alone at the campsite enjoying the
sunshine. He reported crusty skiing in the glades near
Dicks
Lake,
but a fine tour nonetheless. We were soon joined by Chris,
Nate and Mark, and we proceeded to rehydrate and get our
campsite sorted. The time was passed talking gear, teletips
personalities, cattle ranching, future ski trips and other
such nonsense.
Suddenly the radio
crackles to life: “Basecamp, this is Sierra Fred. We
are at Dicks
Lake and will
be at camp in 30 minutes. Repeat. This is Sierra Fred. We
are at Dicks Lake and will be at camp in 30 minutes. Over.”
It was getting late, and Fred and Zeke were making a perfect
pre-dusk entrance into camp. It turns out they had a full
day of skiing. After dropping to Azure Lake from Peak
9,190, they skinned back up to Janine Peak, enjoyed the
spectacular views, then skied down the now-sunny NW face to
Dicks Lake.
Not content with all of this vertical, they opted to skin
back up to Peak 9,190, and then ski its sun-drenched west
side corn run back down to Dicks Lake. Rugged.
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