Our little local hill

Since JTG4eva asked here is some info on our mountain here in Flagstaff. -the upper bowl is a hike to area that is often swept clean by our insane wind events. The best way up and over varies from year to year and it's rare to have solid lines back in from the ridge. Those marked runs in the upper bowl are dropping from the actual permitted boundary and that's about where patrol likes to put the traverse historically. Our crew sometimes gets to put it in and we like to get up over the Ship Rock Chutes and over towards the low saddle. It's often a complicated approach and it takes years to really get a handle on this place. Anyways, here's a few pages from a book I've put together. It's missing a few new things that we explored the last few years. I'll get actual photos of terrain up soon too. Some resources-https://www.kachinapeaks.org/ Powder Mag article from last season-http://www.powder.com/stories/tranquilo/#sdHJ7vSF2krzwFoR.97

And the Inner Basin- this place is sick. We often ski multiple lines in here and then climb back over the ridge to get back to Snowbowl. The tours can be a simple couple of hours with one line in the Cirque and back to three or four lines scattered all around that can take 6 to 8 hours long.

Probably the coolest collection of steep dynamic terrain on the Peaks is Core Ridge.

The Cirque and neighbors.

Oh man, now that I'm going through this I'm seeing that I need to update a bunch of stuff. I'll get to that one day. I hope to pick a few more items off before doing that though. It's crazy that there is still so much to explore here. So much terrain and no one around, I dig that. :)

Like I said, I'll soon post up a bunch of photos of lines with actual snow so you can put it together better. I hope you guys like this sort of stuff, I totally geek out over terrain shots and maps but I get that's not everyone's thing. This silly book of mine has taken quite a bit of work, there are even more pages and much more to still be done and that isn't anything like the work put into the 14 years of touring around this mountain trying to get to know her.  

I think it's likely I'm going to delete this thread after a few weeks. I'm not so sure I want all of this info on the internet.

Wow.  Looks like Mars but with snow.  Neat geography.  Are there lots of BC rescues from people "taking a left turn at Albuquerque?"

RA, you're so soft. Why don't you get back to us when you are more hardcore.



I'm hoping the SW has a good snow year so you can post some more schweeet photos of your endeavors this winter.

Love it RA!  That's a lot of work you put in.  Publish an Arizona BC guide some day, like the Adirondack Slide Guide?

Yes, fascinating geography and geology.  It's a shame that the wind works against you guys so much.

Awesome RA... planning a road trip in mid January.  Maybe we can meetup and you can give me a tour?

Paige Heller drops into the Dunnam Canyon Hourglass line.



From L to R, Spring Slide, Dunnam Canyon Hourglass and the Sewer System


 
 Heck Yeah

Beard Canyon from Cleaver Ridge



Last Chance on the left and Powell to the right

If we have snow you bet. I could probably slide you on the patrol chair first thing in the AM as well.

D.B. Cooper wrote

Wow.  Looks like Mars but with snow.  Neat geography.  Are there lots of BC rescues from people "taking a left turn at Albuquerque?"

We generally only have BC rescues on South Side from people getting lost or broken bones from stump/log strikes under the thin pack. It's right off the chair so any goober can get into it.

When I say that we have barely anyone skiing in the Inner Basin I mean barely anyone. Other than the Cirque I've never ran into another party, I've seen them from afar but that's about it. A busy day in all of that terrain after a big storm might be 5 to 10 people.

People here don't have the experience like in a Jackson or LCC so we sort of have the whole place to ourselves.

Marcski wrote

RA, you're so soft. Why don't you get back to us when you are more hardcore.



I'm hoping the SW has a good snow year so you can post some more schweeet photos of your endeavors this winter.

I am pretty soft honestly. I only get motivated when there is good snow on terrain I enjoy. I know plenty of much more motivated and fit people that I ski with. I'm actually kind of lazy. Hopefully we get it, if so I'll post up pics.

JTG4eva! wrote

Love it RA!  That's a lot of work you put in.  Publish an Arizona BC guide some day, like the Adirondack Slide Guide?

Yes, fascinating geography and geology.  It's a shame that the wind works against you guys so much.

I doubt a guide book would be worth the effort. There isn't enough people that would buy it to make the printing costs make any sense. And anyways I wouldn't want to give it all away. It took my years to figure this place out and that was the most fun thing about it. There are still places here that are mysteries to me and will still provide new adventures for me. Even if I'm not the first person it still feels like that, that spirit or feeling of pioneering is something that is being lost in todays information age and I don't want to be the guy that ruins for the next group. Plus it's so nice and uncrowded!

This is a historical reference though for newbies that are interested in exploring the BC here and want to see what's been done. I haven't met any though that are motivated to get after it, they say they want to but then when the snow hits they don't show up. Their loss I guess.

Core Ridge with Fremont Peak in the background.



Rustler Peak on the left and Heck Yeah to the right. Further to the right is a scoured Heck No (misnamed in my notebook), Christmas Tree and CHY. You can see why Heck Yeah is sort of the old reliable, it often just gets loaded more than anything else. We have had seasons where very little is good for skiing but this line hit all winter. You just had to do some rock scrambling to get there and back! It's also east facing so it stabilizes quickly and doesn't have those long lasting deep instabilities that you get on the north faces.



Scoring an awesome Heck Yeah back in 2010.



This is another one not in my notebook. We named it Huebner's after a local that passed away on the Peaks a few days before we skied this. It's past Last Chance down Core Ridge in a mostly unexplored area. I have a couple more lines in here I really want to get to, last year for whatever reason just didn't work out.

raisingarizona wrote

If we have snow you bet. I could probably slide you on the patrol chair first thing in the AM as well.

Sweet.  For sure.  My old lady is taking a "girls" trip so I'll be riding solo for a couple of weeks.  I'll keep an eye on the weather and let you know if it will materialize by the end of next month.....  Is there any web accessible telemetry around your area?      

Thinking of starting out in second or 3rd week in January (typically the time of the mid-winter PNW Pow drought) and driving for 2 to 3 weeks.... stopping in UT and SW CO along the way.  We did a similar summer MTB/Backpack trip (Sun Valley, Moab, Sedona, Redwood) a few years back... we made it to AZ by midway through the second week of the trip.  

Sweet man. Let me know. Sedona and the GC are always here too. If you have never back packed the canyon I highly recommend doing so. It's super bad ass.

The Skinny Beast, center. The Skinnier Beast to the right.