Indian Peaks Wilderness, CO 6.7.08. Snow Lion is the couloir just right of center. Ascent is just to the right of the cornice on very nice, steep (50 deg) snow.
Conditions were pretty good until we got high up when it was warm enough to get things on the mushy side. Small pieces of the cornice were crumbling off as I finished; it was a little disconcerting to see them tumble harmlessly by twenty feet away.
The dog visible in the picture was the trip leader. He was a mostly-black lab mutt who effortlessly climbed 45-degree snow (D6 rating) and and pretty much completed the perfect dog-day by chasing a ptarmigan and rolling in a recently melted-out, rotting and very putrid deer carcass. It doesn’t get any better than that!
Oh, except for the fact that the pub in Nederland had Avery Maharajah (tripple IPA) on tap. Now THAT is an exclamation point!
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i’m down with any effort with DOG as T.L.
so far, in recent memory, a quick tally of debilitating injuries includes pinched nerve from a misstep in talus while walking off a new route on Mt. Francis Farhquar in the southern Sierra; rockfall to the shoulder in ‘98 while climbing Gift of the Wind Gods,” in a party following the original ascentist - Joanne Urioste - on what may have been a 2nd or 3rd ascent of the route; a severely sprained ankle from an botched attempt a Gill boulder problem at Horse Tooth reservoir while “checking out” the graduate school at CSU in the spring of 2001; running into the back of truck that “failed to maintain its lane” while on my motorcycle, resulting in a busting up arm & bruised up back in ~fall of 2004(?); and now… getting run down by a driver DUI in the bike lane and walking away with a broken rib, bruises and soreness, pinch flat, compromised bicycle frame and rack, and general meanness towards fellow (wo)man.
fall back!!! i’d rather deal with calculated risk and natural weirdness than f-sticks and unknown quantities. thanks for sharing stories from your efforts in the high, thin air. hope to see you and your pals in the mountains soon.
Mark McDaniel
Jeez. It’s safer on the mountain these days.