...not at least for this Sugarbusher!
Date(s) Skied: June 13, 2009
Resort or Ski Area: Tuckerman Ravine
Conditions: Corn.
Weather: Sunny, highs in the 50's and 60's, partial sunshine and an occasional sprinkle.
Trip Report: At long last I can say that I skied Tuckerman Ravine. It had been a long time coming...at least two missed opportunities, but with the weather looking great and some good recon provided by Austin, as well as good timing for me, I could not resist. I was glad to be meeting snowmonster, who was a bit more familiar with Tux than me.
We met at Pinkham at 9am under blue skies. Perfect. By 9:30 we were hiking. We took a leisurely pace up, seeing that neither one of us was in any hurry.
Initial recon, as provided by some snowboarders coming down, was good. "Sluice is nice. Well, it's the only game in town."
[img]http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs106.snc1 /4908_90116169666_744459666_1894881_4305295_n.jpg[/img]
Soon we were within sight:
Before we arrived at HoJo's, we ran into a 73-year old man named Bob, who had convinced his daughters to come along with him and act as his sherpas. We spent some time with Bob--he has spent his retired years skiing--100 days last season at Jackson Hole. He had never been to Tuckerman and in the words of Warren Miller, "if you don't do it this season, you'll only be one year older when you do!" D and C took turns carrying his boots while he had his skis on his pack.
We also met another older gentleman who had his whole family hiking with him to HoJo's for his birthday. Their birthday traditions were, um, interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf2Btwd2c-A
We were getting stoked:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnZJ6yRjZBc
About 30 minutes later we arrived, just shy of 1:30pm to find no crowds and plenty of snow to play on!
After stowing the beer, I had to get some turns...starting with the Lower Snowfields:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKQCzyqo3lM
All the meanwhile, Bob was quietly getting ready for his first run at Tux:
He hiked almost to the top of Sluice...a bit higher than me...and let it rip.
I found myself on a perch about 2/3 the way up Sluice where I watched him ski down, and then I hit the run. The snow was perfect. The pitch was steep, but you had no obstacles, so you could let them rip. When I got down, both Bob and I were reeling from the run...he only made one, but he was so pumped. After exchanging handshakes and contact info, he called it quits while I went up for more. Snowmonster did as well.
We each got 4-5 runs in...with me skiing from the same spot down. We had the ravine to ourselves for most of the day. We shared a beer at about 3:30pm and headed out at 4:30.
We did see some obviously lost hikers come very close to killing themselves by attempting to descend the headwall and the wet cliffs. That was a bit unnerving and we reported them to the HoJo's caretaker.
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