Tour-iffic!

Less than 3 weeks away to the Grand Traverse. I'm a bit worried about my fitness for the event...but it's pretty much too late for me to do anything about it. I've been skiing as much as I can working over 40 hours a week. It's hard to find time to train for a 40mile backcountry ski race! It's been very marginal at the nordic center and in most of the backcountry. I haven't even visited two of my favorite spots this year because they're under 10,000ft elevation. It's been fun, but it's been a relatively POOR winter we're having. Here's my post from last year on this day...significantly more like winter.

Anyway, after 3 hours at the nordic center Saturday with 1" of new snow on ice corduroy I headed to EP today to tour as long a tour as I could. There was about 4" of new snow up high, but with windblown, the leeward slopes had about double that (it was quite windy last night). The first hill I had been eyeing for awhile (above picture, line along left tree ridge) and we had crossed the lower reaches with some Pilots a couple of months ago. It was quite good right along the trees as the aspect veered more north. The south and east aspects were mid-May mashed potatoes. This is one weird March so far. Then I headed over to my favorite secret stash - Chutes and Ladders.

Pine marten tracks next to the Stelvio

Huge old growth stand of spruce and fir trees with massive snags on this hard to get to ridge.

Upper Chutes and Ladders. This little (apparently secret) area always has soft snow on the northeast gullies. I'm amazed I only make tracks here and never FIND any tracks. I think it must be because it's hidden from view from the main trail and any other turns in the area.

Lower Chutes and Ladders. Altogether, a mere 400ft vertical but oh so sweet!

After a great 6 hours trying to tire myself out (it worked), I made my way down the hill to the main trail. The sun baked aspects were now death-crust mixed in with the shadier soft snow, it made for an interesting (scary) downhill. The skis stick in the wet snow, fly in the soft colder snow and stop dead in the death-crust. I didn't make it down safely. BOOM! I fell so hard on one turn near the bottom that I landed on my ass on the back of my skis forcing my right boot backward so hard that the metal pin that locks the boot into ski mode from walk mode popped out. It split in two. No more ski mode in this boot. In the same crash, my hip belt on my pack popped off of one side from the impact! My neck is a bit sore tonight from the whiplash. Hope these are fixable issues or that was one seriously expensive crash. Moral of the story, if there is one - bring caffeine for the last run of the day.

Coming soon, a full Silverton report...