Enough surf and sail. It's winter. I'm submitting trip reports to skiingthebackcountry.com so I may as well post them here too. A friend lent me a camera so now I've got pics.
I got my first "alpine start" of the winter, rising before the sun to tour up Cascade Canyon to Valhalla, a hanging canyon rimmed by the Grand Teton and Mount Owen. Getting up before the sun is never fun, but we were headed to VALHALLA. I pity the folks that wake on the wrong side of the ass crack 5 times a week for work.
Bitter cold inversion that morning... and we never saw a ray of light throughout Cascade, so it was a cold one. Shit crust on S and E facing slopes but anything NE to NW is still skiing great. Boot deep sugar with a little surface hoar.
I got to spot out a bunch of lines for later including (L) a sexy little shot, (C) the Tallboy Couloir off the Pass between Teewinot and Owen... 4000 vert of fun. (R) Guide's Wall looking like fun mixed climbing.
After 3 miles on the groomed XC trail, 1.5 miles crossing Jenny Lake, and another 2.5 gentle miles up Cascade Canyon (fuckin' flats!) we finally started the true ascent into Valhalla Canyon. Though only about 2500 vert, it provided exciting ascent route finding and a great ski descent.
Here's an interesting section of our skin track. The background gully looked primed to slide so we followed the windlip at the base of a cliff to this funky little wraparound scramble.
As we ascended the sights to our North got more appealing. There's some great skiing to do on the South Facing wall of Cascade as well.
North Wall of Cascade Canyon from the hanging (and jaw-dropping) mouth of Valhalla Canyon.
Three little peaks comprising the W Wall of Valhalla Canyon and the rollover down into Cascade.
Trippy light wrapping around the Grand Teton from the NW flank of Mount Owen.
No, there are no skiiing shots from the descent... no time for such nonsense.
It turned into a 12 hour mini-epic as a partner had skin troubles and the entire trip car to car includes about 15 miles of skinning... way too much of it on the flats. But the skiing was good and the views in and en route to Valhalla Canyon well worth 6 hours of flatlanding.
Checking out the ski potential in Cascade proved worthwhile as I got photos of several lines I'm looking forward to hitting this spring. Easy S facing ascents to pow on the N facing slopes of Cascade... no brainer.
