It has been a long and persistent winter. Vague plannings of trips moved from Spring break to end of March to beginning of spring. Talk of taking on some of the local fifty has been on our mind for weeks and at long last, a weather window appeared. Our micro-heat wave quickly took care of the 1-3 foot persistent slab that we had been contending with for weeks. In the course of a few days we went from wind-slabs and persistent, cold snow to wet slide wet slab and cornice fall. With the danger on low for the first time since February, we set off early Friday morning (After a long night before!)

Left from the parking lot at around 6:30~7 with Andrew and Hayden. The two 60 degree days in Silverthorne completely rotted the snow to the core to the point where we were skinning on this crusty bumpy terrible snow after the first real freeze in 3 days. However, this freeze percolated through the snowpack and led to a very strong, consolidated snowpack for scary part of the ascent. Below treeline was fairly straightforward, follow the well established skintrack until the first sign, turn left, then follow it until it inevitably disappears. The slick, icy, frozen snow was very difficult to skin up -- especially in some snowshoer's tracks, which led to a profanity (or 100) as our skins struggled to keep up. Eventually, around 750 feet below treeline we abandoned the skin track and kick turned our way up, digging our edges in and taking low angles up in order to not slip. The steepest bit of the slope extends from about 250 feet below treeline to about 500 above. Some scary kick turns were had, as the slope approaches 45 and on this crusty ice we had little chance of slowing down once moving. Once you summit the crest [3], you take a much mellower ridge to the summit. Above this is straightforward and went by smoothly. Just as we reached the midway point to the summit from there, the mountain rewarded us with some much appreciated sun.

The silver couloir has two main entrances. I believe skiers right could have been skied from the summit, however, following our GPX we decided to take the left entrance. This required a maybe 30 second walk over rocks to get the continuous snow again. The snow was... questionable at best. Seems like a party the day prior had a lot of fun in the slush, but with our first real overnight freeze, the conditions completely changed. What was likely early season slush 24 hours prior was reduced to bulletproof ice for 90% of the run, but what was skied out from before exposed the dust layer from the early April event. This prevented refreeze and led to a fun but disappointing descent. While we were able to grab a few amazing slush turns, it just means our snowmelt will be accelerated. It's a shame that we keep getting this dust on snow events which can reduce our season by 30+ days.

While the skiing was inconsistent, this route still makes one of the best ones of the year! Based on our GPX it was about 6-7 miles likely due to the low angle skin up on ice. I certainly understand why it's a classic. This line is about 3000 feet of sustained, steep, 35-45 degree skiing. Calling it a couloir is generous, more like a massive gully, but that shouldn't take away from the grandiosity and payout of this line. It is pure backcountry fun. I can't wait to return to this on a powder or pure corn day. The skin out is noteworthy but it isn't bad by any means (you made it up 2500 feet to the summit, what's 300 more?) But it certainty noteable.

Happy skiing friends. Lets make the long end of this season a good one!