Nice report. Care to add any detail about your avy evaluations?

Benjamin Kulas wrote:
> For an aerial photo of my backcountry  trip this weekend see:
>
> http://kachinapeaks.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=388#388
>
> (Instead of heading up as the route is indicated on the photo, we 
> headed up and descended the return leg descending from the ridge. 
> Dutchman Glade is the open area to the left of the ascent arrow, 
> Allison Clay is the avalanche path with the descent route squiggling 
> down it, and the field we farmed is the one just above the tail of the 
> descent arrow. Temptations is the drainage descending from the ridge 
> to the right of the ascent arrow.
>
> Report:
>
> Loaded up the car Friday afternoon, escaped Phoenix via combination of 
> fast-moving (thankfully) freeways, and sped up I-17 to Flagstaff, 
> arriving at the hotel ca. 8 pm. James, a Phoenician and recent convert 
> to randonee, and I headed off to a yrewerb to meet Jeremy, formerly of 
> Athens, Vermont, now a local with much knowledge of the San Francisco 
> Peaks. Over reebs we plotted our strategy. It had snowed the day 
> before, but not too much, so that avalanche potential wouldn't be a 
> concern. We would head up to the Snow Bowl early enough to beat the 
> lift-ticket-purchasing public, skin north from the ski area, past 
> Dutchman Glade, and assess the conditions of Allison Clay, a prominent 
> avalanche path descending some 2500 feet from the north-south running 
> ridgeline leading up to Humphreys Peak (12633'--the top of Arizona). 
> Depending on the conditions we found, we would either ski Allison Clay 
> or woods on the ridge to the south or perhaps even the woods beneath 
> Temptations, the avalanche path and drainage immediately north of the 
> Snowbowl's bowl.
>
> We hit the trail shortly before 9 am, Saturday. Within 20 minutes or 
> so we arrived at the bottom of Dutchman Glade. It's not really a 
> glade, rather a huge open rectangle running up about 700 vertical 
> feet. Rather wide, with a fairly consistent slope, it's almost like a 
> section of McTrail in the middle of the forest. With an average slope 
> around 25 degrees, I think the openness is the result of a volcanic 
> rock surface rather than (snow) slide activity. We skinned about 
> halfway up it and then cut left (north) into the woods. A few minutes 
> of skinning brought us to a wide but short (100 vertical feet) pasture 
> of powder, which we noted for later. Fifteen minutes or so more 
> brought us to a point several hundred feet above the bottom of the 
> slide path.
>
> Allison Clay looked to be well scoured by wind, but we suspected that 
> the southern, more protected side would have good snow. We began to 
> skin up the northern side, on the edge of the trees, where enough snow 
> had been deposited to permit skinning. For a bit. Eventually we were 
> faced with wind slab hard enough that we could barely kick toe holds 
> and I was mighty glad to have my piolet. Poor James is still in the 
> process of trying to find the right-fitting AT boot and did not enjoy 
> the (lack of) traction his Langes afforded him. Reassessing the scene 
> we decided to cut back to the center of avalanche path, where it 
> appeared that there were lines of wind-deposited snow higher up the 
> path. We traversed over, scrambled up some exposed pumicial scree, and 
> started skinning again. The wind picked up as we switchbacked higher 
> and higher. We reached a rock outcropping that was more or less the 
> top of the wind-deposited line and prepared to descend.
>
> In fact  the left side of the gully held a nice swath of 
> wind-deposited snow that skied really nicely. The grains look like 
> crumbled styrofoam. We skied down to just below the treeline and then 
> cut left (south) into the woods. The woods offered us deep, settled 
> powder, and we zigged and zagged back down to the small field we had 
> passed on the way up.
>
> Jeremy went first, down the right side. I wrote s's to the left of 
> his, followed by James, who tagged a couple trees as he popped out of 
> the woods halfway down the right side. We dropped our gear in th 
> corner, and booted up along the trees at the climber's left. The next 
> hour or two we tilled the field's powder completely.
>
> Ready to heady back to the car, we topped the field on last time and 
> then schussed down the last remnants of powder and into the woods 
> below. We descended the traverse back to the Snowbowl and came out at 
> the top of the bunny slope. Our cars were at the lot at the bottom, so 
> we carved fast sweepings turns through the sredraobwons sitting on 
> their sessa.
>
> One moment of humor at the end: as I skied to the parking lot I lifted 
> the rope with my pole and then ducked. At the last moment I remembered 
> my piolet, just as it caught the rope and slammed me on my back. (I 
> chuckled and thought of MW)
>
> After burgers and reebs it was back to Phoenicia.
>
>
>
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