Apocalypse and Son

AJ Linnell — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 15:53:35 +0000

I got slid in the Apocalypse Couloir in 2009 after mis-judging stability, and have wanted to go back ever since to ride it successfully. Last weekend was a perfect opportunity for a re-match; we’ve received over 500” of snow in the Tetons so far this season, and the stability is beautiful. The only thing keeping us from getting up into the alpine every day is the endless series of storms that keep rolling through. High pressure has been rare, and we’re waiting for a good spell of it to settle in so that we can do some exploring up high. But we had a brief spell of clear weather last weekend, and the Apocalypse is unusual among steep couloirs in the Tetons–it hangs off of the northeast side of Prospector’s Mountain, and with its top just shy of 10,000’ it tends to be pretty sheltered from high-elevation storminess.

My buddy Zahan was once again the partner of choice. At maybe 5’9” tall and weighing in at 135 pounds (soaking wet with a hard-on,) Z is an aerobic machine. His willingness to break trail from pre-dawn to dusk combined with solid mountain skills make him one of the greatest ski mountaineering partners imaginable. We’ve spent many days in the mountains together and will hopefully spend many more. With plans for some really big days in the Tetons when conditions come together, we thought that following a descent of the Apocalypse Couloir with a climb and descent of the Son of Apocalypse Couloir would make for good training.

Crossing the lake with gorgeous morning light on the far shore.

Sunday’s route took us across Phelps Lake and up through the thin forest on the east slopes of Prospector’s. Sunrise lit up the lower forest while we skinned across the frozen lake and we were granted stunning views of Albright Peak as the morning’s inversion fog burned off.

Albright Peak pops out of the fog in the background.

Winding our way up through the forest, we made good time getting to the ridgecrest and the notch above the top of the Apocalypse. The couloir ends about 200’ below the ridgecrest, with a steep rockband keeping it from topping out.

The inevitable summit shot--AJ and Zahan, about the enter the Apocalypse Couloir.

With our huge snowpack this year, we found snow covering the rock and were able to downclimb most of it with the aid of a fixed-line that had been anchored to a tree at the top.

AJ down-climbs the entrance to the Apocalypse Couloir.

Midway down, the fixed-line turned into a rappel anchor, so we rapped a short pitch and then down-climbed through a choke to the point where we could step in to board and skis.

Z approaches the bottom the rappel into the Apocalypse.

We made turns down the entrance shaft to the starting zone of the couloir, where I built a quick snow anchor to belay Z while he ski-cut the top.

Z descends the entrance shaft to the Apocalypse. Skinny!

Nothing moved after two aggressive ski cuts, not even sluff. It felt like cheating to stand at the top of a 50-degree couloir with knee-deep, stable powder in it! It’s a rare thing–usually the snow is firm and chalky, maybe even crusty, when conditions are safe enough to take on these objectives. Z gave me the thumbs-up for the first pitch, so I dropped-in to floaty, steep bliss–effortless turns at high speed through magic snow. Totally awesome.

Fat turns in the start of the Apocalypse Couloir. Wagner Custom just built a new board for me that rides like a dream--a bit shorter for tight spots, and it's super stiff. It powers through thick snow and chunder, and carves into firm snow like cat claws on curtains.

Z fires turns down the Apocalypse.

We leap-frogged our way down the couloir to the choke 1500’ below, where there is typically a 40’ water-ice down-climb, and discovered that it was completely filled-in and skiable! A bit firm from perpetual sluffing, to be sure, but we were able to ski it clean and make our way to the canyon bottom without having to step out of our gear–again, a rare thing.

Lunchtime. Z catches his breath after skiing the 3000' couloir. (The exit is visible in the background.)

After a brief lunch break in the sun we put our boards back on our packs and pointed ourselves up the Son of Apocalypse Couloir. The lower half was great climbing–firm and fast. But as we got higher the snow got deeper until we were breaking crotch-deep trail to the top of it. Brutal. We would each take a turn at the front, kicking steps for maybe 5 minutes before stepping out the way and getting a reprieve from plowing the track uphill. Another quick break in the sun on the ridge allowed us to recover a bit before turning ourselves back downhill for another fantastic run. The ball-deep trail-breaking on the way up translated to fat, fast powder turns descending the top half of the couloir.

Fast turns down the Son of Apocalypse Couloir--part 2 of one hell of a day.

Leap-frogging again, we made huge, mach-speed turns down to the midway choke and our return to chalky snow. 1000’ of skiing down sluffed snow and old avalanche debris brought us back to the bottom of the canyon and an hour of cross-country travel back to the truck. (I remain convinced of the superiority of approach skis for snowboard mountaineering–the side-hill skinning and rolling travel would have been awful on a splitboard, but on the Wagner approach skis it felt cruiser.)

I will remember our day on the Apocalypse and Son as one of my most successful, fun days in the mountains. Amazing snow, mind-blowing terrain, 5000′+ of skiing, and a partner with the skills and stoke to make it happen with style. Life in the Tetons is good.

Finding Treasure in the Tetons

AJ Linnell — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 21:16:03 +0000

AJ Linnell breaking trail on Treasure Mountain using Wagner Custom approach skis

I just spent 10 days in the Tetons teaching an instructor training seminar for NOLS, doing some really amazing riding while training a new generation of backcountry snowboarding instructors. With all the time we spent skinning and riding, my trainees were pretty impressed at the performance of my Wagner Custom approach skis, and how easy my transitions were compared to their splitboards. 50cm of new snow graced us over the first few days, and after seeing the start to our season’s snowpack it was really nice to see stability improve around here, opening up the big lines that were too dangerous before. On our last tour day I went down the far north ridge of Treasure Mountain with five of our riders to explore an avalanche path up there.

AJ Incoming

We made our way along the heavily corniced ridgeline under overcast skies, cutting one HUGE cornice to test the slope below–no reaction under hundreds of pounds of impact made us feel pretty good about the situation. Test pits near the starting zone of our intended path confirmed good stability, so we punched the gut in fast powder, riding one-at-a-time from safe zone to safe zone. (Practicing good down-guiding technique.) Big rooster tails ripping through little trees in steep terrain had everybody grinning and whooping, and the turns just kept coming. We finally reached the bench at the “bottom” of our run when I realized that we were standing at the top of a shot that I had been eyeing for a couple of years from the skateski track below. It was pure luck that we ended up right on top of it, with perfect conditions and a group of strong riders. Awesome.

AJ scopes the entrance

The Boy Scout Couloir is so named because it is the only clean line through the 400′ limestone cliff above the Treasure Mountain boy scout camp. Steep, narrow, and perfectly plumb, the couloir is a deep and beautiful cleft through towering rock walls. Ultimately, the reason that I hadn’t ridden it before was because of the long access and the difficulty of finding it from above. But with us camped on the summit of Treasure Mountain, we were perfectly set up for a descent and didn’t even know it. It would mean a long skin back to camp, but what better way to wrap up this trip?

AJ exits Boy Scout Couloir

After describing the couloir to my tour group they jumped at the chance to ride it, so I took over the down-guiding and we rode up to the lip to scout the entrance. We found a little sneak above some rocks to access a dozen 50-degree turns into the meat of the couloir–beautiful. Once everybody was grouped up inside the couloir, I rode firm, fun powder to a good spotting zone just above the rock portal at the exit and gave the team the thumbs-up to ride it out one-at-a-time. They made fast, controlled turns, leaving cold crystal rooster tails, opening it up once they hit the fan at the exit. Once they were safely through and into the forest below, I aired off my perch and rode out to join them. Big smiles, lots of high-fives and general giddyness ensued.

What a ride

We rode down through a bit more forested terrain to the bottom of the canyon and transitioned for the skin back up. After 8 days of winter camping, everybody was a bit fatigued and really hungry, but super stoked to finish the trip with a line like that. The 5-hour skin back up (splitboard skins can be a nightmare) took a circuitous route up Eddington Canyon and past the Eddington Chutes. (We had ridden those a couple of days earlier.) We watched the sun set over the Big Holes just as we climbed a bootpack through the rock band at the top of the Treasure Mountain massif, the sky turning lava red. Dusk fell into dark as we rolled back into camp, spent but happy, ready for a huge dinner feed and looking forward to going home to family and friends.

Skinning home

Skinning out of the mountains with our camp in the sled behind me, I became acutely aware of the caliber of the backcountry snowboarding program that we’ve created at NOLS. If you’re a snowboarder and you want to take your riding to the next level in the backcountry, I would definitely consider taking a course–you’d be amazed at the experience.

Wagner Custom Ski Blog » snowboard safety

Apocalypse and Son

Finding Treasure in the Tetons