[John Morrow]

Jake and I have been wanting to get in to the country behind Lanham Lake for quite some time. Wanting something new, north facing, and somewhat high, today seemed as good as any. We were not disappointed! The approach is great, follow the trail out of the Nordic Center to Lanham Lake and then follow the logical main drainage. Make a bit of a climbing traverse in nice well spaced forest to avoid a cliff band. Gain a gentle upper basin to the saddle just east of Point 5938'. Our goal was a great bowl/broad gully due east of the saddle. We climbed the ridge crest east gaining a high point at 6040 feet, just before the SW ridge of Jim Hill gets rocky.

First Look from Lake

Ummm nice!

Beacon range check

At the divide

We were tentative on account of not really knowing what the snowpack stability was like beneath us. On a short ski cut we discovered 8" to 12" light new snow on a rain crust (earlier in the week) that was somewhat smooth but soft enough to trap skis. After knocking a small cornice, and stomping on two parallel mini ski cuts, no activity. To our surprise on the end of a longer ski cut, at a small tree, a release just wide as the length of my skis ran on the rain crust. It was odd because it didn't fan out like a sluff, it also didn't fracture into a greater slab, it simply ran fast with two beautifully parallel flanks. The path width stayed about the true length of my skis the whole way. It certainly gained enough volume to make us very concerned. Slope was N at about 35 degrees. That was enough to make us back off that gorgeous 1000 vertical north facing run. Instead we took about an 800 vertical run down the gentle open glades south into the Whitepine cirque. The underlying crust here was very solid and, again, another similar slide w/o lateral propagation but with remarkably parallel flanks on a 35 degree roll.

Somewhat scary slide, no go

Southside into Whitepine

South facing slide

Great south-facing glades

Only look at Bulls Tooth

Leaving Whitepine Cr.

It was beautiful back there but we decided to climb back out to our saddle. Then we continued onto Point 5938' for a nice long north-facing run all the way down to Lanham Lake. The top 200 vert off the point was over 36 degrees and slid freely once again on the rain crust with the same characteristic narrow path and parallel flanks. The snow was cohesive enough, apparently to run like that, but not quite to propagate a greater slab across any of the slopes.

Great run home

Jake getting started

Deep light snow

What we choose not to ski

Last shallow gully

Primo!

Fast gentle turns

Jake fast and fun

Last turns to lake

Lots of terrain

Always a moment of climbing out

The trail ski out was fast and exciting in the snowshoe track! There is A LOT of terrain back there to explore!