The 6000 ft Chute

By:  Sam
March 24, 2010


After our two-day traversing tour, we were very eager to ski something challenging, and even more eager to ski without an overnight pack. We set our sights on an awesomely tall chute that we had spotted from across the valley during the traverse.

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(note, a few of the photos are smaller than others due to the loss of the originals)

A 2:30am wake up got us, after an hour long, pitch-black, motorcycle ride, into position to start hiking up a large chute just to the south of Solang. We left our bikes at the ski area and hiked up into a maze of boulders in our street shoes. Having found a “distinctive looking” boulder, we changed into our ski boots and hiked on. We pressed on at a tediously slow pace through punchy un-supportive snow crossing a fairly major stream several times before finally reaching a point that we could skin. At 7:30 in the morning, after three challenging hours of hiking, we finally reached the base of the main chute. Due to icy snow, we were forced to transition to crampons to continue.

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When viewing the photo I prefaced this trip report with, it’s easy to imagine boot packing up a thin, steep chute for a couple of thousand feet. It wasn’t until we had switched to crampons that we began to understand the magnitude of our undertaking. Parts of the chute that looked like they might be thirty feet wide from across the valley turned out to be 150 yards wide once we were in them, our proportions were equally far off regarding the height of the chute as well, turning a decent sized day trip into a monstrous proposition.

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Read about the author:   Sam
Enjoy this TR? Read another: TR: Nortwest Couloir Climb

Related Stuff:

  1. SPAM #2: Nunya Chute–Smuggler’s Notch, VT
  2. TR: The 6000ft. Chute

7 Comments

  1. powhounddd
    wrote on March 27th, 2010 at 9:57 am  
    1

    That is pretty incredible. Mega-chute!!

    But…weirder than Quebec? “C’est impossible!”

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
    • Dwyer
      wrote on March 28th, 2010 at 2:03 am  
      2

      nope. its not.

  2. chris
    wrote on March 27th, 2010 at 12:02 pm  
    3

    Nice pics Sam and welcome back. You guys in VT?

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
    • Sam
      wrote on March 27th, 2010 at 3:48 pm  
      4

      we’re still in NJ, and I will be for about a week more. It’ll be nice to have some time to re-adjust and take it a bit easy before trying to get going on real life again.

  3. StuckinJersey
    wrote on March 27th, 2010 at 5:57 pm  
    5

    Man, stuff looks FANtastic. that is a special place.

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  4. CookieMonster
    wrote on March 30th, 2010 at 2:06 am  
    6

    I have to say, this is an absolutely brilliant trip report. What a monster line!

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  5. Butch Chamberlain
    wrote on March 8th, 2011 at 1:50 pm  
    7

    If you’re not on the edge, then you are taking up way too much space! Very sick ravine. Conditions sound absolutely painful. But I do envy you. Great stuff great stuff. Keep it up. Imagine what you can find if only one takes the risk of checking things out. Hmmm

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
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