Cold temps, clear, and sunny today. I have been avoiding this bowl all season. I avoided it in December because of shallow snowpack and high avalanche danger. I avoided it in January due to high avalanche danger. In mid February, there was a deep, stable, snowpack. And finally, today, 3 days after a major blizzard that dumped about 3′ of snow, the danger settled down to moderate and the forecast predicted a cold, sunny day.
We decided to give it a try. Only 3 days after the storm, and the south and east faces were already covered with hundreds of tracks. I had no interest in that. If I’m going to climb the brutal, 3000′ uptrack, I want to ski untracked powder, and I had a hunch where I could find it – Go North.
The North Face and North Gully of Rolyatabowl rarely gets skied. To do both requires a 12 mile tour and 4000′ of climbing. Today, both bowls were untracked, a lovely site. The snow was dense, easy-to-ski powder.
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