Notes from the Wall

 
This is how I remember Montana as a kid. Mike standing next to a plowed snowcut near the top of the Beartooth Pass.

The evening of July 5th, Mike Harrelson, his son Clyde, Kale Krieger and myself headed over to the Beartooths to do a quick campout and ski trip. The trip over to Red Lodge was fairly painless as Clyde took on driving duties, Kale rode shotgun and sorted out music and Mike and myelf lounged in the back of the minivan. Who says having teenage boys is without it’s advantages?

We stopped in Red Lodge for some eats at the Boxcar Diner. Everyone but lactose intolerant boy had huckleberry milkshakes, and Mike ordered up some onion rings of which everyone partook, causing gastric anomalies for the rest of the trip.We than proceeded to the East Rock Creek Road and camped at a forest service campground. Due to our inability to get out of camp before 7:30 a.m. we were hit up for the camping fee by the local geriatric campground host. He did, however, manage to give us change for our twenty.

Our first stop on Le Tour de Beartooth was the Gardiner Headwall. This was Clyde and Kale’s first foray into the Beartooth ski world, so we stopped and looked at the run before driving to the top.

Clyde and Kale with the Gardiner Headwall in the background, just left of Clyde

Kale, Clyde and HJ at the top of the Gardiner Headwall.

We did two runs down the Gardiner Headwall. The first run we went down the bowl, and the second run we negotiated the cornice and skied down the guts of the couloir.

Kale dropping over the cornice with high style.

HJ using conservative tactics.

Kale skiing the Gardiner Headwall.

HJ skiing the Gardiner Headwall.

Kale, Mike (eating a bagel), and Clyde at the bottom of the Gardiner Headwall, the bowl is behind on the right and the Headwall Couloir is on the left.

After our runs on the Gardiner Headwall, we crossed the road and dropped into a little more challenging line.
HJ pointing out the line to Kale and Clyde.

It never looks as steep looking uphill: Kale, Clyde and HJ skiing a line across the road from the Gardiner Headwall.

What goes down must hike back out. Kale and Clyde booting uphill.

HJ being totally psyched to be skiing in July again.

After doing the line across the road from the Gardiner Headwall, (don’t you love these great names? I’m sure we had a real name for this in my youth, but I don’t remember it now), we went to the other side of the pass. Some young shredders had made a giant cheese wedge there and were hucking themselves off the thing.

An unknown hucker.

Kale getting so much air he can’t stay in the picture frame.

While Kale was busy launching himself, Mike, Clyde, myself and another pinner named Jeff hiked up to ski a steep chute off the ridge line, across from the chute ‘57 chevy.

The cheese wedge and the Beartooth Highway, which makes all of this possible.

Clyde at the top of the narrow chute across from ‘57 Chevy.

Clyde dropping in. Notice the tiny skiers at the bottom of the chute.

As we were hiking out to the car, lightning started striking and it started raining, so it was time to say adios to the Beartooths.

Thanks to Mike Harrelson for the photos.

This is for Chris. A nice shot near the top of Goodrich Pinnacle in Yosemite Valley.

We keep getting snow. This weekend (April 5th) it snowed two feet in the Bridger Range. Made for amazing skiing, but really, almost every day has been amazing skiing. We’ve had 381 inches of snowfall, and the settled base at Bridger Bowl is 112 inches. This means great coverage, most of the steep lines are filled in and now that it’s spring you can ski ’till 8:00 p.m. if your legs can take it. Bridger has extended it’s season, so now it’s last day is April 14th. Yesterday I skied at Bridger in the morning, than stepped out of bounds and did one run on Slushmans and two runs up Saddle Peak. Gorgeous bluebird day in great snow.

Thanks to Mike Harrelson for this shot of HJ skiing Slushmans with Saddle Peak in the background.

Even though it’s still snowing, some of us are getting psyched for a trip to Devils Tower. So, to help get the psyche going I’m posting up a few photos from trips past. For climbing photos Continue Reading »

One of the things we climbed last summer in the Black Hills was this clump of rocks at the top of Pine Creek Natural Area. I’d been looking for this peak for a while, and finally found it two summers earlier by simply hiking uphill. Duh! Simple when you know how. Anyway, HJ, Karyn and I hiked up there this past July, and dragged a passle of relatives along with us. It was amusing, to say the least.

Becky (my sister) with her two daughters Elizabeth and Kat, all wearing blue jeans and toting three plastic water bottles between them on a hot (88+) July day. Jennifer Parker and her fiance Frank Truong, who was thrilled to be up in the cool mountain air. Sarah Parker, the adventurous one. We all had cell phones, cameras and lunch.

When we got to the green valley between the two main spires, we had a spot of lunch. HJ had brought a rope and we brought our shoes, just in case the bitsy tower was climbable. HJ climbed it no pro to see if it was. He then roped Karyn and I up a short little pitch to the top. Sarah, while an excellent climber, volunteered to guide Becky, Kat, Elizabeth, Jennifer and Frank back to the trailhead at Horsethief Lake. The most amusing thing about the climb was the proliferation of ladybugs which constantly buzzed around us, getting in our eyes, ears and generally being annoying.

After climbing to the top, HJ remarked that we might perhaps be the first to have climbed this rather minor spire, although the altitude is high for the Hills. Who knows? Anyway we named the pitch Ladybug Tower — give it 5.5, cause I scraped up my knees on some particularly sharp outcrops of granite. Karyn climbs with style and grace, I climb with all of my parts engaged.

The funny part of this story is that we hiked back down the ridge, got to the cars, and found that Becky and the rest of the party had not yet returned. We went for a swim. An hour later after sunning ourselves in the murky deeps of HTL, we came back to the car. Still no hikers. We began to get concerned. Just as we were drawing straws to see who would call the Forest Service search and rescue team, Frank and Jennifer hove into view.

Turns out intrepid Sarah steered them down the lefthand drainage, instead of keeping to the ridgetop. Long story short, they got lost, drank scummy pond water treated with iodine (to kill the germs) and Becky almost collapsed from sunstroke. Very funny. Moral of the story: don’t hike in blue jeans, carry lots of water. And never trust Sarah (or David) to know the proper trail home (but that’s another story)…

Til then.

This shot has shown up a lot of places, and I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of it. It’s on top of Superpin, a 5.10x in the Needles of South Dakota. Hulahooping is a bit of a sport in my family. We have a family reunion every 4th of July at our family’s place in Palmer Gulch, in the Black Hills of South Dakota. As part of the festivities we have an “Olympics” where hulahooping is one of many events. I also try and climb Superpin and Hairypin and any number of other Needles classics while I am at my family reunion, so with a little egging on from my nieces and nephews I put the two together.

Hulahooping atop a most perfect summit.
For shots of the actual climb Continue Reading »

I’ve now had my Prius for a little over two years, and I’ve driven it about 40,000 miles, with help from mom and dad. Anyway, I’ve crunched the numbers, and so far my lifetime average is 45.5 mpg, or 5.2 L/100km. Not too bad. I do not work at getting great economy by driving slowly, and a good part of my driving is going to the ski hill in winter when it’s very cold, so I can’t really imagine anyone doing much worse than me for mileage. The car handles great on snow and ice with the Blizzak snow tires I have.

I get mostly positive comments on my license plate, but there seem to be a few individuals in the world that take life so seriously that they can’t take a pun. I came back to my vehicle after a day of climing in Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park and found this note under the windshield wiper.

It’s getting to be that time of year again. The whole family is planning to visit Bozeman for our spring break this year. Here is a photo from our last visit. Can anyone tell where it is?
We are all getting excited, well most of us. Chris hasn’t got into the skiing spirit yet but hopefully another snowboarding session will do the trick. Hailey is looking forward to skiing hully gully again.

In the fall of ‘06 cousin James and I spent a night at the Garnet Peak Firetower.

Why is cousin James smiling?

A) Our accommodation has a stellar panoramic view.

B) We have a bottle of K Syrah wine.

C) His cousin has sprayed himself with Bear Spray.

Bonus Question: What is HJs hat sitting on?

During Christmas of 2004 my local ski area, Bridger Bowl got 71 inches of snow overnight. They did not manage to open the ski hill the next day, and another two feet of snow fell. Amazing skiing, for those who could stay upright. The next day, another foot of snow fell, but they managed to open the ridge. Somewhere in this picture is my buddy Mike Finkel skiing in 100 inches of new snow. The location is The Nose off the ridge. It seems unlikely that we will ever get to experience this again.