Athlete Reports BLOG POSTS

Made my third annual trip down to the skier’s (and snow rider’s) bonanza that is Las Leñas , Argentina. This makes me a mere rookie. The resort opened in 1984, and the Americans invaded in 1994 (including Telluride’s own Paul Russell) for a freeski competition. Since then, the gringos have been charging the terrain, pushing out into further territory, and making the most of an American summer by skiing some of the best in-bounds, side-country, and backcountry in the world.

For the third year in a row, I headed down with Johnny Lyons from Vail (this summer was his tenth anniversary trip), and we spent a little over two weeks skiing new-to-us terrain, old favorites, and scouting lines that we hope to ski in future years.


This year was my first time down there on my Wagners, and I could not have chosen a better ski for the terrain. I brought a second pair of skis, but never skied them. Las Leñas begs for longer, stiffer skis, as there are no trees (literally zero trees), and rather than turning around obstacles, you just turn when you’re good and ready. So when the conditions are right (which they were for much of our trip), you can really open it up and ski big lines at high speed, with nice, open run-outs.

Our trip started with mediocre snowpack, following a huge storm that shut down the infamous Marte lift, then the temps went up, and the winds came in (as they always do in Leñas). By the time we arrived (about 10 days after the storm), what was left was boilerplate and melting fast. Fortunately, there are always good lines to ski, especially if you’re willing to spend some time touring to get to them. And once Marte reopened, we were able to access some great terrain with only an hour or two of hiking/skinning. By the time we started to exhaust our options, the next storm rolled in with 3 meters of snow up top. Again, the winds came, so it was never the blower powder we’re used to in Colorado, but all you gotta do is know your aspects, and go find the good snow. Which we did.

Las Leñas is definitely not for everyone, as the lift-served terrain does not suit all skier types, and the conditions are not always great in-bounds (or side-country). At the same time, when Marte is good, there may not be a better lift, accessing more challenging terrain anywhere in the world… and if you like to tour, and aren’t afraid of long days in the backcountry, Las Leñas has some of the best access to touring I’ve seen (and it’s truly infinite). As good or better than my home terrain around Silverton, CO.

Thanks to Pete and the crew at Wagner for building some fantastic skis, and making this year my best yet! Enjoy the photos, and perhaps we’ll see you down there next summer…

After a season of turning back from objectives, it felt really good to complete a descent of the Grand Teton, so Jake MacArthur and I decided to carry that momentum up the Middle a couple of days later.  It almost felt like I had slept in when the alarm went off at 3:30 and we both commented on feeling well-rested after 6 hours of sleep.  Skinning away from the truck at 5:15, it also felt really good knowing that dawn would break in an hour.

These long approaches into the Tetons have made me super impressed by and thankful for my new approach skis from Wagner, and skins from Climbing Skins Direct.  For this year, the guys at Wagner Custom made my skis a bit wider and shorter, with a flat tail and more camber.  They’re also lighter due to an all-aspen core.  Snappy, with kick for the flats, and really light underfoot.  The skins from CSD are light and supple, and I’ve been shocked at how well they glide–it’s really unbelievable being able to kick-and-glide with skins on.

With these thoughts running through my head, the trip across Bradley Lake and up Garnet Canyon flew by.

Before I knew it the sun had risen and we were staring up the Ellingwood Couloir–1500′ of 50-degree snow that tops out at the Dike Col.

The climbing was fantastic–really firm frontpointing, with some short stretches of ice mixed in.  We hit the Col by mid-morning, stopping briefly to re-fuel as we looked over at our tracks on the Grand, just receiving the morning sun.

The upper East Face of the Middle Teton loomed above us in the sun as well, the last 600′ before the summit.  I had turned back from the East Face a few times in the past, so I was definitely chomping to finish it up on this day.  We traversed across a 50-degree powder slope to get to the gut of the climb and found soft, boot-top powder conditions.

With the sun full on the Face it felt like climbing in a solar broiler–fortunately we cruised up it quickly and surmounted the 60+-degree pitch at the crest.  The East Face route culminates in a notch ~50′ below the summit; the final pitch to the top might be skiable in some years, but we found dry, slabby rock so we decided to call the notch our high point.

Sitting in the notch on a sunny, windless morning, looking down into Wyoming on the east and Idaho on the west, I felt supremely satisfied with our adventure.  Sure, it’s a ton of effort to get here and there are risks involved, but the reward is so sweet.

And without calculating and managing risk would it be a worthwhile pursuit?  We let our sweat dry in the sun and chuckled about the enormous group that was rumored to be over on the Grand while we were the only party on the Middle.  Sometimes it all just works out.

When it felt like time to go, I put my boots back on and we rigged up for the descent.  The initial entrance onto the East Face was actually pretty sporty–no wider than the length of my board, really steep, with thousands of feet of relief below.  Whew.  I side-slipped and hopped my way down onto the crest of the Face and then made controlled turns down to the gut, where things eased off a bit.

Jake side-stepped through the entrance–his skis were definitely longer than the space allowed–and joined me.  The trip down to the Dike Col was fun and brief–really just a few turns and a traverse, but in pretty great, moist powder.

And then we leapfrogged down sweet springtime corn in the Ellingwood, taking pictures, whooping it up.

We had a variety of theories about how to handle the sluff that we brought down, but it seemed to work best for me to just ride faster than the sluff was traveling, making high-speed GS turns, laying it over hard.  Jake’s skis weren’t quite as fast, so he chose to vary his fall-line to stay out of his sluff.

Once we exited the bottom of the couloir a hard left brought us to the top of the Cave Couloir for another 1000′ of mellow turns down to the Meadows in Garnet Canyon.

The trip out was quick and uneventful and we cruised the trip across the lake and over the moraines, back to the truck.  Compared to the day on the Grand, I felt remarkably energetic after more than 7000′ of climbing and riding.  I wish I could have another month of Teton adventures like this, but I’m headed to Alaska next week for a month of guiding.  I’m stoked to have ridden these lines at the end of this season–maybe I can squeak in one or two more before I leave…

Leaving the house at midnight feels really early, or late depending on how you approach your evening.  Nevertheless, having gotten less than two hours’ sleep I loaded into Jake MacArthur’s car with Andy Tyson and drove away for a day in the Park.  We had our sights set on the crown jewel of the range, the Grand Teton–I rode it a couple of years ago and wanted to give it another go, this time via the original route that Bill Briggs skied in his groundbreaking 1971 first descent.

We would approach via Garnet Canyon to the Teepe Col, climbing the full Stettner Couloir to the East Face and then to the summit.  Which sounds much more straightforward than it turned out to be.

Skinning away from the parking lot at 1:30, the five hours that remained before dawn felt like a pretty long stretch of headlamp skinning.  Fortunately there were three of us in it together, and the iPod made it feel easier.  Refrozen skin tracks proved to be super slippery on the steeper stretches getting into Garnet.  Ski crampons were vital for the trip up the rock-hard surface snow on the Teepe Glacier.  But just when the endless darkness was becoming oppressive, the upper glacier glowed orange as we finished climbing to the Teepe Col in the warmth of sunrise.

We left any unnecessary gear at the Teepe Col (skins, ski crampons, my approach skis and poles), pulling out crampons and ice tools for the remaining climb.  With a thousand of feet of relief to the canyon below the traverse around to the Glencoe Col felt exposed, but it was easy travel and we quickly reached the shadows of the Stettner.  The lower Stettner was pretty good climbing–boot-top chalky powder, and the ice bulge in the pinch was completely filled-in so that we could just fly past it.  The upper Stettner was another story.

Looking up as we climbed past the mouth of the Chevy (which we would descend hours later), the narrows above looked pretty easy–shallow snow over low-angle slabby rock with some scree thrown in.  The chockstone that used to present the greatest difficulty of this route blew out two summers ago, in theory making the Stettner a much more achievable line for winter ascents/descents.  As I started to climb past the first rock bulge, though, it proved to be significantly harder than it looked.

The rock was actually steep, with little usable ice, and the snow was all sugar.  I backed off halfway up it and we pulled out the rope and gear.

Andy found a patch of ice that took one screw just above our belay platform, and I somehow took the lead.  (Andy is by far the better climber–what was I thinking?)  We acknowledged that there would be no protection on the climb up this stretch; it was solo climbing while dragging a rope so that I could belay my partners up to me.  But that was the situation that we had, so up I went.  Climbing slowly and deliberately, placing my picks and frontpoints in small clefts in the rock, I squirreled my way up to the easy snow above and belayed Andy up to me.  (After hauling my pack and snowboard up–there was no way I was going to lead through that with my pack and snowboard on my back.)  Andy continued up to check out the next bulge while I belayed Jake.  Unfortunately, this just wasn’t Jake’s day–he was worn out from no sleep the night before and the climbing we had already done, so he decided to turn back and meet us at the Teepe Col.

It was cold as hell in the Stettner–by the time I was done belaying and climbed to Andy I was wearing everything I had with me and still didn’t want to stop moving.  As a result, we decided that I should lead the second bulge as well so that I could warm up.  And of course, the climbing proved to be significantly steeper and harder than it looked from below.  Andy had found good ice for a belay anchor (which we hadn’t found at the first bulge), but there was no way to protect the climbing up here either.  Once again placing my picks and frontpoints gingerly on the rock I slowly climbed past this bulge and finally reached the sun at the top.

I must say, the sun felt really good.  After belaying Andy up to me, we stood in the sun and ate a quick snack while stowing away the ropes.  The last thousand feet to the top were technically easy, but physically crushing.

We could see the summit the whole time and the boot-top trailbreaking occasionally turned to stretches of thigh-deep powder.  It should have been pretty quick and manageable, but at 13,000′ with the sun baking us it took over an hour.

But summit we did, right around noon.  Amazing views in all directions, with a stiff wind out of the west.  I had forgotten how far the top of the Grand is above everything else–even the Middle looks small from up there.  We took a brief respite on the top, snacking a bit and recharging on Red Bull and Monster.  And then we made turns right off the top.

The snow in the upper Stettner had been pretty bad, so we decided to ride the Ford-Stettner variation instead.  The first hundred feet or so off the top were just picking our way through a few rocks to the top of the Ford, but then it all turned sweet.  50-degree turns on firm windbuff led down into the gut and 1000′+ of 45-degree moist, ankle-deep powder with a slight soft crust on the surface.  Awesome carving turns on my snowboard, maybe not quite as much fun for Andy on his skis.  We cruised down the Ford pretty quickly and found the anchors at the top of the Chevy after a super exposed sneak between some rocks and the top of the Petzoldt Couloir (a thousand feet of air to a rocky landing.)  Two full 60-meter rappels took us down the Chevy and back into the Stettner for more soft, fun turns to the bottom of our line.

A traverse around to the Teepe Col brought us back to Jake and all of us had a sunny descent down into Garnet Canyon and back to the parking lot.

This time on the Grand felt easier than the last, but it still took 15 hours and I can’t say that at the end of it I was ready to go throw a frisbee or do much of anything besides eat and sleep.  It was a super fun, challenging day on a truly spectacular mountain with great friends.  As we drove home we were already planning our next trip.  It’s amazing how easy it is to be inspired by this range, how each objective reveals a myriad of others.

The Corner Pocket by Brad Foley               Photos by Brad Foley and Chason Russell

 

The day started out normal enough, coffee, breakfast, morning phone calls to find a ski partner for the day and out the door.  By the time I had made it to town Chason was calling with one thing on his mind, the Corner Pocket.  As one of the last unskied lines on the west face of Silver Mountain the Corner Pocket was high on the list of ski decents.  After grabbing climbing gear and ropes Erin Raley, Chason Russell and I were on the lifts and on our way to Silver Mountain.

Moving quickly through upper Lena basin we made it to the entrance of the Corner Pocket at the top of the ridge between Palmyra Peak and Silver Mountain.  Looking down the couloir that led to the hanging snowfield of the Corner we knew that it was going to be more of an adventure than we had thought. 

Wanting to ski the line as pure as possible Chason kept the ropes in his backpack and headed down the steep, rocky terrain.  Sidestepping with skis on to a small patch of snow we were able to make a few turns to the next section of extremely steep rock.  Trying not to think of the cliff below we made it through the crux of the down climb with adding only a few grey hairs.

 

 

Back on snow and feeling much more comfortable we had finally made it to the heart of the Corner Pocket.  The heat of the sun had left us with soft easy skiing snow; with breathtaking views to the west and smiles now on our faces the only thing left to do was ski.  Left right left right down to the “powder reserve” and on to the Observatory for a much needed rest before skinning back to our cars.  Even if someone had skied the Corner Pocket before us, it didn’t matter I was just happy to have spent the day with two great friends in one of the most beautiful places around.