Worker Turns and Avy on Taylor/Glory

I was a little slow out of the gate today cuz I had a meeting at work. Thankfully, Brian Harder waited for me and we were on the trail to Taylor Mountain a bit after 10. Surprisingly, this was my first time skiing Taylor. It’s weird how certain areas never make it into the cycle, even after 13 years.

We broke trail from the parking lot and saw some shooting cracks as we contoured onto one of the ridges after a few hundred feet of elevation gain. The avy forecast reads considerable today…I would say so. We weaved thought the trees and finely made it to some better coverage and what felt like a better snowpack up high.

It didn’t take long for us to get to the final ridge to the summit and for the wind to pick up as well. We got blasted as we transitioned for the descent. Man, it sure would nice to have a hut up here too. Snow conditions varied on the way down. Ranging from creamy powder to a thin zipper crust that I thought was rather odd.

We ate up vert quickly and were soon searching for the best coverage down low. We decided to bail on another lap here and instead head up to the top of the pass for a couple laps on Glory. Brain got a little scare and went for a ride in a small slide and it buried him to his waist. About a 40′ slab with a 12-18” crown ripped while he was traversing into one of the gullies at the bottom. It was Brian’s first avalanche incident…never a good thing.

A quick drive to the top of the pass brought us better snow for sure and we saw some familiar faces. We did a lap on Shovel Slide and Twin Slides which were great. It was about 3pm and we were still getting fresh tracks on the most basic Pass runs. How great! The sun tried to come out all day it seemed. When the visibility increased it revealed evidence of some more slides on the right side of Glory and the Windy Ridge area in the distance.

A nice booter close to the ascent ridge was a fun way to wrap up the day and close to 7K of vert. The sky is clearing as I write this. Looks like bluebird powder today…maybe I’ll go for another 10K.