Day 66, 2006-2007
Rock Creek Headwall (10,500') / Beartooth Mountains / MT
June 29, 2007

I parked the car in a pull out at 10,250' next to a group of bikers. Not the 
spandex and crash helmet type, but the leather chaps, bare-chested and 
chains with a handlebar mustache type. Smoking cigarettes and plotting their 
next move they regarded me with squinted eyes and a careful avoidance of 
anything approaching a stupid question. For this, I loved them. I put my pack 
on and wandered off over the alpine tundra in the direction of the height of 
land that separated me from the Rock Creek Headwall.
The trip across the tundra and up and over the height of land took over a half 
hour as I stopped on occasion and panned my vision in a slow 360 searching 
the vast green carpet for signs of the huge black bear I had spotted earlier in 
the week. I wasn't really scared of being attacked by a black bear. Not really. 
But I couldn't help imagining the irony of being eaten by a bear. Car crash? 
Sure. Plane crash? Maybe. Snowboarding wreck? Probably. Bear attack? 
Well….hadn't ever given that one much though. Until now.
Eventually I gained the height of land and could look down to the long broken 
edge that marked the end of the world. I hiked to the edge and looked down 
into the Rock Creek canyon, an amazing four thousand vertical foot relief. I 
wasn't anywhere near where I needed to be though and so spent another 10 
minutes sort of half-running along the headwall edge looking for the top of the 
two fingers of snow that remained to be skied in the infamous Rock Creek 
Headwall.
All week the headwall had been the first major objective I saw driving up to 
the pass. It lurks above a major hairpin on the drive up- a gateway, a beacon. 
The aspect is mostly south east however and by this time of year, in this not 
especially tremendous snow year, the skiable lines had dwindled and died until 
there were only two. They were both super skinny and super steep, dropping 
for over 800 vertical feet from the granite rim of the headwall until petering 
out in a jumbled mass of boulders. Because they required a bit of a hike to 
reach I was more or less assured of peace and quite.
But they were hard to find from the top for my novice-to-this-area eyes and 
by the time I did get to the right spot I was somewhat anxious to get off what 
my mind had by now imagined was a bear infested death zone. But jeezum 
crow what a sight from above- The couloirs twisted and twitched about 
themselves for the entire descent and were never more than 10 or so feet 
wide- much less than that at the top. And steep- boy what was it about this 
place for unforgiving skiing? The left couloir was the steeper of the two (about 
55 degrees) and so that's were I started strapping in. 
Once I was ready to go I looked between my knees at the couloir snaking this 
way and that below and started a short heel side slide downhill in what I 
thought would be a preparatory pre-turn for the toe side jump turn that would 
start the business. There was zero room for error as the steepness would 
mitigate self arrest in the event of a fall and there wasn't enough width in the 
couloir for anything but precision turns. I slide a few feet more down the 
couloir and then….balked. NO! my mind yelled. DO NOT SKI THIS.
I stopped, surprised by the gravity of my mind's decision. Unprecedented. 
Never have I stopped a descent once I started. I stopped and with one swift 
motion that was the result of thousands of repetitions, I unstrapped my rear 
foot and stepped out of the binding and onto the steep snow. I reached for 
the side of the couloir to get a hand hold … and found that it was three or 
four feet too far away to grab. It was then, standing on that 55 degree snow 
slope with one foot in and one foot out of my snowboard that I realized what 
a stunningly stupid thing it was to unstrap that back foot. I was balanced on 
my heelside edge with most of my weight on my front foot, holding that edge 
like a bronco rider holds the reigns- for dear life. 
We all do stupid things. This was rapidly climbing my personal stupidity list 
however as I quickly ran through the short list of available options before 
settling on the only thing that made any sense- get my foot back in that 
binding. With the utmost care, sweating bullets, I gingerly reached down and 
pulled the straps out of the way of my boot. Then the moment of moments- I 
lifted my rear boot off the snow, thereby balancing on my front heel, and with 
the herky jerky elegance of a left handed submarine pitcher placed my boot 
into the binding. I fumbled with the strap and of course it refused to budge 
but in my fumbling the snowboard started to slide downhill.
Whoa! Digging in with my front heel I applied all my focus on spreading as 
much weight as possible across that heel side edge, knowing that a slide for 
life now would be just that. And I stopped. Again.
With renewed vigor I strapped that back heel in tight and then looked at the 
couloir walls for something, anything, to grab. I spied a big bomber bucket of a 
hold about five feet downhill and saw something like salvation. If only I could 
get to it…rocking slightly back and forth I slide downhill again and heel turned 
like mad and grabbed for that bomber hold. And snagged it! 
One hand in the granite now I quickly unstrapped both bindings and threw the 
board onto the granite gendarme separating the left couloir from the right. 
Sweating profusely and shaking I climbed across the gendarme to the right 
side couloir and proceeded to snowboard the freakin heck out of that run. 

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