Day 58: Memorial Chute "Cragging"

After working all night I felt the need for some outdoor time. Luckily, John responded to my 6:30 am text and was up for some adventure. I'm not sure if this is what he had in mind.



We were mostly able to skin from the car, but it was obvious that the way back would require some walking. On the way up, before the destination was visible, John commented that the bushwhacking we were doing reminded him of bird hunting in Maine. That got a laugh and I told him we were hunting...for chutes.

The coverage gradually got better and our main problem became trying to decide which chute to ski. Here's that same pic again of the lovely Memorial Couloirs from the fritzrips site. We kept poking our noses further up the drainage and soon were looking up a foreshortened Couloir #1. Ok by me since last year I had the pleasure of skiing #'s 4 and 5.

We skinned up the chute until we came to a branch point. To the left was a gorgeous tight chute that John and I will refer to as Couloir #0.5 since it branches off of #1 to the looker's left, and in accordance with the numbering in the linked picture, 0.5 seemed fitting.

0.5


It was tempting, but we forged ahead and were rewarded with a view neither of us had ever seen before. Well, the mountains were familiar, but the vantage point novel.

Mt Olympus' backside:


John dropping into #1:





We found pretty great skiing back to the fork and laid down a booter through 0.5's skinny belly. On the way up there was courageous talk of straightlining the choke.



On the way down...



John feeling like he found his bird:



The exit wasn't too bad and only required a ten minute walk before clicking back in and skiing to the car.

And my wife wonders why I want to live in Olympus Cove.