Hunter and I left the truck with a plan A and a plan B. Plan A was to climb the South Ridge of Superior, traverse from the summit to pole-line pass, ski back to to the road, and hike back to the truck. Plan B was to bail at Suicide Chute if conditions, time, or weather was not on our side.
Well, as it turns out, all three were against us. The snow conditions were basically knee to waist-deep wallowing over rock, which was very slow going. By the time we got to the Chute (which is the obvious bail out point along the ridge), it was clear that we would be in for a very long day if we kept going. We still would have been down before dark, but without a lot of room for things going wrong, which they always do. Combine that with some weather moving in, and the decision was obvious.
When we came up with the bail-out plan, we expected some rather terrible snow conditions. Basically, survival skiing back to the car. Instead, we found ourselves standing on top of over 1,200 feet of untracked, waist-deep powder. Since we had 30 meters of rope on us from the climbing portion of the day, I was able to ski cut the slope a few times on belay until I felt comfortable enough to until and rip the rest.
The bail out plan turned out to be one of the best ski runs of my life. Usually when I bail off something there’s a sense of relief in getting back home in one piece, but always an underlying dejection of not completing when I set out to do. Today, we were so happy with how the backup plan went that we completely forgot that we ever had anything else in mind.
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