Mountaineering + Backcountry Skiing

A few weeks ago Marie was nice enough to let me bookend a week with 2 weekend trips. The first was a winter summit of the Pfeifferhorn. The second was a 3 day backcountry skiing yurt trip.

The Pfeifferhorn was a great trip, but a BIG time learning experience. We snowshoed in a narrow skin track, and I was stuck in big, awkward rental Tubbs 30s, with almost everyone else on MSRs or at least 25s. MSRs rule, the rest suck. end of story.

Here's most of the group on the way in. I look bad in all of the pics. I lost my sunglasses on the trail (had spare goggles) and my eyes still seem more sensitive after PRK, so I'm always squinting.

Here you can see the beautiful hole under the rock where my group slept instead of building an igloo or snow cave. Problem was we didn't block off the entrance enough to retain much heat, and the rock sucked it out pretty fast anyway. Also, the canyon we were in hardly gets any light, so the temp was about -15 overnight instead of the expected 0. Not much sleep.

Dig the gear? Military gortex is warm, but it doesn't breathe at all.

The view from up top is awesome.

Yurt life was much better than rock cave life. Heating rules!

Yurt from the outside.

Skinning up to the ridgeline. My mega-bling Suunto watch did a lot of good during the trip, since I didn't set it to record. I have no idea how many vertical feet we did, although I'd guess about 3,500. The first aspect was solid, but mega crusty and it was comic to watch the tele guys catch tips and wipe out. Randonee rules!