Big Kangaroo Tour
Larry, Flash, Scooby- Feb 28th, 2008
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| While the last two weeks in the North Cascades
have not been as abundant in snowfall as the rest of the season,
we have had the good fortune of blues skies and good stability.
Toward the end of February, local skier coach Chris "Flash"
Clark, joined Larry and Scooby for one of the most classic tours
of the area. |
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| The tour begins from the hairpin turn
on highway 20 and begins with views of the Early Winter
spires and lots of sunny blue skies. |
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| After climbing over a small pass at the
head of the valley, Flash drops into the next drainage
in perfect corn conditions. |
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| In T-shirt weather, we climbed up toward
our next descent, known as the "life is good gully"
AKA "the shooter chute". Here Flash enjoys the
views on the climb. |
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| Slightly intimidating from above, the
left hand coliour of these twin chutes offers a steep
entrance and sustained skiing in the mid to upper 30 degree
range. |
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| Flash drops in.... |
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| Out the bottom and back into more perfect
corn. Powder on the shady aspects and corn on the sunny
slopes - a hard combination to beat! |
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| Our next climb took us to the top of
large cornice in this photo. We climbed up from the backside
and got ready to drop into our next descent known as "the
Beerbong" for its funnel shape. |
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| Due to the extremely large cornices,
we skied a steep spine that dropped in to the top of the
slope and avoided the cornices. The rock massif in the
background is the South face of Big Kangaroo. |
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| With the cornices looming large above,
Flash makes haste to lose some elevation. The snow was
cold and perfect through the upper part of the funnel. |
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| Entering the constriction, Flash keeps
em' turning with Scooby close behind. |
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| The last climb of the day is a long,
gentle climb with great views of Snagtooth ridge and Silver
Star Mountain (on the left). |
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| The last climb ends with a short, steep
section usually climbed on foot. Here Scooby waits at
the col wondering why we climb so slowly. |
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| The last run is over 3000 vertical feet
of west facing corn snow right back to the hairpin and
the start of the tour. Here Flash enjoys a brief rest
break in the sun contemplating the sea of peaks and planning
future adventures. |
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| The snow on the last pitch allowed us
to open up our turns and let the skis run like you can
only do on perfect corn. |
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| Finally, back at the hairpin, we looked
back up at our tracks and toasted to another great day
in the North Cascades. |
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