Saturday, March 12, 2016

Twins NW Couloir and Diving Board


Great morning skiing with Aaron Rice!  Our original plan was to go up Broads to East Twin then ski the NW couloir then come back up to the ridge and ski out Stairs.  These would all be new lines for me and my first time climbing up Twins in the winter which proved to be very exciting! After we dropped in off the top of East Twin, Aaron looked down the top of the couloir and it looked like there was a cliff in the middle of it.  Since neither of us had been there before we skied down on the side a little ways.  Further down we could see that what we were first looking down was the right chute and there was a way down that didn’t involve a cliff.  After skiing the couloir down into upper Deaf Smith we made our way back up to the ridge. We set a steep skinner and gained the ridge above Diving Board and I was out of time for the day.  We thought Stairs was further away than it really was so we decided to just ski down Diving Board.  We found out later one more short ridge climb and a traverse was all it would have taken to get to Stairs.  Next time.  This is an amazing area! Upper Deaf Smith is a very cool place and the Twins are some of my favorite peaks!

Definitely spring conditions

Beautiful views on the way up.  There is blue ice up there!



Looking up at East Twin and the ridge to get there




Some rock/snow/ice climbing on these slabs was a little scary but very fun and exciting!

 Aaron had to climb it with one hand, two fingers, and a cast! 

Aaron close to the summit

Summit views




Dropping in off the top

Aaron skiing down

My turn, mid hop turn

A better view of what we just skied

Looking down Diving Board

Glide cracks

I'll never look at this view from my backyard the same

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