I wanted to sleep in and recover from skiing The Grand yesterday, but I’m back to work today and down to SLC for the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show this weekend…so I have to ski while I can. Luckily, my bro Dustin Lemke charged ahead with me to work out the lactic acid in the legs.
We got an 8 AM start amongst valley fog with the idea of skiing the Chouinard or Ellingwood Couloir on the Middle Teton. We cruised up the trail that is now a highway to Garnet Canyon to scope out the lines. The Ellingwood looked thin with a few extra chocolate chips poking though, but the Chouinard looked much more appetizing.
You could tell that the sun was affecting all of these more exposed aspects and we got rained on by snow and ice falling from above the entire way up the couloir. Maybe we should have been there earlier. I hung back and let Dustin do the work breaking trail. He owed me from yesterday on the big one. I thoroughly enjoyed it! Thanks Dustin.
The couloir narrows after about 1000′ and steepens as well. It looked surprisingly well filled in and we climbed to the highest point we could ski from. It looks like in bigger snow years you might be able to ski from higher up though. My watch read close to 12,500′, so not much higher to the summit of the Middle Teton.
We were psyched to be skiing again and the snow was quite good. We skied the couloir at about 1:30, but I think it would have been better at about noon, when it had more sun on it. On the way down we hugged the left side for corn and the right for more powdery snow. These are the conditions that I love in the mountains. The pow/corn combo!!!
gee, you never rest do you?
how steep is the culoar? did you got heavy snow as well?
first photo looks like a 45 deg but continuos, slip out of the question i guess…
Another great TR. You’ve got me addicted.
nice work again rome, definately lookes like a better option than the ellingwood. wondering if you have any beta for conditions on the southeast face of the south teton wondering if the choke at the bottom is in. thanx
Alex,
Very variable snow in the couloir…but nice. Maybe 50 degrees at the high end.
Mike,
Are you asking about the SE Couloir…or Face? SE Couloir crux may be filled in…tough to tell from the road. SE Face goes.
i was wondering about the southeast face route, sounds good, thanx for the beta.
Mike,
The trick with those routes is getting back down to Avalanche Canyon. You can hike back up to the col just north of Matternought Peak and have a clean ski down to the canyon (I’ve never skied this way though). Or you can ski directly down from where the SE Face places you. This route is not always filled-in (probably not right now either) and every time I have done it required some technical skiing with a bit of airtime.
RS
thanx for even more beta, the matternought col route seems like the way this time of year. gonna give it a shot on sunday. thanx again.