cbcbd
Well-known member
Date: 4/28/07
Trails:Airline, Gulfside, Great Gully, King Ravine, Short Line
Mountains:Madison - not this time
Special Equipment:Flotation devices
After seeing this pic of Madison from 4/22 by MadTownie I wanted to make it up there and ski from the summit and possibly head over to Great Gully in King Ravine to ski out.
Trail bare at Apalachia, I started up pretty late (11:50am) up the Airline.
Saw my first good consistent snow shortly after and at some point started skinning up the trail.
Trail was packed at the steps but mostly mushy outside of them. Working around the tons of blowdown on the narrow trail with skis on was a PITA (I'm still a BC newbie, so still getting used to navigating trails with skis on). With still tons of snow, the trail got pretty short, probably 3' high at spots.
That, fighting blowdown, and getting completely soaked because of the rain (it was raining pretty good at around 3pm) and wet trees all around, I was making horrible time up the trail and my spirits were being drained as I kicked myself for:
a)Leaving my shell in the car for some reason
b)forgetting my headlamp in the car - both of them
c)picking up the wrong map xerox copy to take with me
But anyway, onward I went and reached the end of the skinning line
Caught some views of the Great Gully and, with quick views of Madison not being too promising (low snowpack and socked in fog), and Not too much time left for safely guaranteeing to make it out before dark, I decided to can Madison and just head over and try to find the snow entrance to the Great Gully.
On the Gulfside I had to stop at one of the snowfields on the flanks of Adams, go up and ski down back to the trail
And then I went on... after walking around a little bit and following to the left of the GG trail, I found the entrance to the gully!!
The gully was nice and steep and I got some sweet untracked turns. I was psyched!
It was around 5pm now but I wanted more skiing - so I headed back up past the steeper wall to the way top of the snow where there was a nice little drop into the gully
Lots of sweet turns later I traversed to skier's left into the gully over in order to avoid the ice bulge.
Ended up at the bottom of an avy debris pile.
From here on it was interesting... didn't really know where the trail was and spent some time getting stuck in snow and hopping through the boulder field looking for blazes.
Now the fog had somewhat lifted and I could see the line down the gully.
Once I found the trail I just made myself down... Not really fun skiing, and there were some blowdowns to go around. Took off skis with 3/4mi to go and arrived at the lot at 7:15pm!!
Ooof... what a day.
Went to McDonalds and enjoyed a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese while reading the David Roberts book recommended by MadT
-Doug
Trails:Airline, Gulfside, Great Gully, King Ravine, Short Line
Mountains:Madison - not this time
Special Equipment:Flotation devices
After seeing this pic of Madison from 4/22 by MadTownie I wanted to make it up there and ski from the summit and possibly head over to Great Gully in King Ravine to ski out.
Trail bare at Apalachia, I started up pretty late (11:50am) up the Airline.
Saw my first good consistent snow shortly after and at some point started skinning up the trail.
Trail was packed at the steps but mostly mushy outside of them. Working around the tons of blowdown on the narrow trail with skis on was a PITA (I'm still a BC newbie, so still getting used to navigating trails with skis on). With still tons of snow, the trail got pretty short, probably 3' high at spots.
That, fighting blowdown, and getting completely soaked because of the rain (it was raining pretty good at around 3pm) and wet trees all around, I was making horrible time up the trail and my spirits were being drained as I kicked myself for:
a)Leaving my shell in the car for some reason
b)forgetting my headlamp in the car - both of them
c)picking up the wrong map xerox copy to take with me
But anyway, onward I went and reached the end of the skinning line
Caught some views of the Great Gully and, with quick views of Madison not being too promising (low snowpack and socked in fog), and Not too much time left for safely guaranteeing to make it out before dark, I decided to can Madison and just head over and try to find the snow entrance to the Great Gully.
On the Gulfside I had to stop at one of the snowfields on the flanks of Adams, go up and ski down back to the trail
And then I went on... after walking around a little bit and following to the left of the GG trail, I found the entrance to the gully!!
The gully was nice and steep and I got some sweet untracked turns. I was psyched!
It was around 5pm now but I wanted more skiing - so I headed back up past the steeper wall to the way top of the snow where there was a nice little drop into the gully
Lots of sweet turns later I traversed to skier's left into the gully over in order to avoid the ice bulge.
Ended up at the bottom of an avy debris pile.
From here on it was interesting... didn't really know where the trail was and spent some time getting stuck in snow and hopping through the boulder field looking for blazes.
Now the fog had somewhat lifted and I could see the line down the gully.
Once I found the trail I just made myself down... Not really fun skiing, and there were some blowdowns to go around. Took off skis with 3/4mi to go and arrived at the lot at 7:15pm!!
Ooof... what a day.
Went to McDonalds and enjoyed a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese while reading the David Roberts book recommended by MadT
-Doug
