Glacier Ski Camp, Wahoo Tower Area - Day 9 & 10

LOC: Snow Cave

BARO 781, No Precip, Wind L from the NW

Well, we finally found our way out of the storm. Yesterday started out nice, but the light snow never stopped and the wind really picked up in the afternoon. We headed out touring anyways, mostly as a way of passing the day. When we were leaving camp it was a total whiteout.

We went in the direction of Mt. Obelia heading North. We encountered some wind scoured crust not to far up, so we turned and tried going a different way, under a cornice. The snow however, was not good there either. We pondered what we should do, and decided to ski down the Sirenia Glacier if there was a break in the weather.

During a brief improvement, we headed down. It was survival sking because we couldn't see a thing. At the bottom we laughed at the poor location of camp. It was always in the wind. We decided to skin back up and do another lap just to pass some time.

At the change over spot, mid skin rip, it started to clear out. Every man/woman for him/herself we skied down and if just got better and better. We carried on much further this time and got some much appreciated powder turns. With lots of smiles at the bottom we watched Sam go off a jump in the sunshine.

Back at camp it was very windy and there was lots of blowing snow. Some people were a little grouchy.

The next day we awoke to a glorious day. We had made it back to the easy days we had experienced at the start of the trip. We agreed to head for Mt. Oluk and hurriedly prepared for departure. We escaped camp at 11:07am.

Heading to the peak, we set out in the direction we had two days before. This time however, we hugged the side of Mt. Dolphin and then got some really nice turns down to 1940m, where we could begin climbing back up around Mt. Dolphin. We had lunch at 2275m and then skinned up to the summit of Mt. Oluk (2710m.)

The skin up was a long slog up a large steep slope. The view was of a beautiful alpine bowl with cliffs, crevasses and peaks all around. We scrambled up the last few meters and the surroundings were all our friends who we had visited before the storm: Wahoo Tower, Mt. Sirenia and Mt. Bonito.

We skied back down and got some of the best powder of the trip. A couple of pitches were sun crusted but most of it was great. The last pitch especially had light powder which was like being bathed in a heavenly glow. From there we skinned back to camp which took about an hour.