Trip Stats
Trip Report
The alarm went off at 2:00am and by 2:45am we were on the snow and moving under the cover of darkness from our camp at 11,500ft. The snow was firm, but I was able to get good purchase with my skins on the mellow slope. Once we started gaining elevation, we were funneled into a wide chute that had a good amount of debris from an avalanche. Eventually the slope steepened and Trevor and I put on our ski crampons, while Frank continued without (he didn’t have any). Climbing up a fairly steep and icy slope without much light, I was very glad to be using crampons.
Three hours later we took our first break, greeted by morning light. We were making good progress, over 3,000ft gained, but we knew we would be moving considerably slower as the elevation took its toll. We continued heading upward and eventually realized we had gone to far to our left to summit our original objective Shitidhar. But we were headed towards another high point in the ridge that we wanted to ski, so we continued skinning up. As the slope steepened, Frank decided to throw his skins on his back. Around 15,500ft the slope became very steep and Trevor slipped. He was upright for a couple of seconds, as slide downwards with his crampons sporadically biting into the frozen snow. Falling down face first and continuing sliding, I realized this could be big trouble. Luckily he was able to dig into the snow his is pole handle and arrest himself. Time join Frank and put our skis on our back. We continued climbing, although now it was in the form of kicking steps.
We took a final break somewhere above 16,000ft and carved out a bench to sit on. The sun was out and looking across the valley Hunaman Tibba stood in its massiveness. We were all tired, and took a long break allowing the snow to soften. We had underestimated the steepness of the slope, but we felt confident we could boot up it. We set out again kicking steps up and I was thoroughly exhausted after 10 minutes. I had done a good amount of ski touring this winter, but never more than 3,500ft in a day and at much lower elevations. I was now paying the price. While leading, I settled for one solid kick for each step. Later that day, Frank and Trevor told me they had given me lots of space because it looked like my boot was barely in the snow. We rotated kicking steeps and finally made it to flat spot on the ridge. There was a steep face rock face covered with a slab of snow rising another couple hundred feet above us, but it was over 50 degrees and looked like it might be unstable with the sun warming it. We ended up traversing without our skis along the ridge behind us to a high point and were rewarded with incredible views of the endless mountains. Kullu valley looked incredibly green and lush.
At 11am, we made our descent. The snow was still hard, and we carefully skied down the top part until the snow softened up. We took turns skiing - I could only ski about 500 feet before I had to take a break to regain myself. The snow was excellent and very carveable, with the bottom 2,000ft being a little soft. We skied right back to the camp, ready for rest and food and another day of skiing.
