My Backyard: The Y Couloir

With the high pressure ruling the weather lately it has made for really stable snow on some of the steeper lines in the area so I have been taking advantage. Last weekend, Josh and I decided it was a good day for the Y couloir. This couloir is a pretty constant 42 degree pitch over about 3,000 vertical feet. The night before as plans were made I started to have extreme anxiety but it didn't last too long. As we booted up the couloir I tried not to think about the downhill. When we got to the top of the climb it really started to hit me that I was about to ski down by far the most technical line I had ever skied. I felt like I was going to throw up and just tried to remind myself that as soon as I started skiing I would feel fine and enjoy the incredible views. After we down climbed off the summit and started skiing I felt totally comfortable (mostly) and it was the most fun line I've ever skied. I knew going into this that overcoming my fear to ski this would probably set the stage for the rest of my skiing career. The most interesting part of skiing more of these lines is that it is all skiing. Once you get past the mental barriers it is just making turns. And all of these lines look way worse than they are once you are actually skiing down them.

Josh getting into the short bushwhack