Twin Sisters Traverse
Travis dropped in first.
I followed
Trying to figure out the icy part.
Allen then took the lead and skied the chute to the spot where we’d stashed our overnight gear.
We’d skied the first objective of the day and found the snow to be stable and predictable, but the crux of the trip, the South Twin was still an unknown, and we were running a little behind schedule as the chute on North Twin had been taller than expected.
Allen broke trail all the way up and over the ridge to the Sisters Glacier on the east side of the range
The views only got more amazing as the traverse continued. The sense of solitude in the Twins was hard to beat, they felt like our own private mountain range and we never saw anyone else.
Allen, climbing South Twin, with our line down North visible in the background.
South Twin posed two problems, if the snow on the north face felt unstable, we would likely have to abort the trip as we didn’t think we had the gear to do the traverse on the east side, and we didn’t have a good alternative to getting to the west side other than up and over South twin. Luckily for us, the snow was stable and the bergschrund posed no challenges.
Topping out on South.
Read about the author: Sam
14 Comments
Adrian
wrote on April 10th, 2012 at 1:27 amWow, looks like a great ski. Sure is some beautiful country around those parts.
Skidmarks
wrote on April 10th, 2012 at 7:24 amAt first glance I thought you were talking about Twin Mountain NH!!
Great report guys.
bushman
wrote on April 10th, 2012 at 8:37 amDamn! I’m out of breath just reading the notes below each frame; what a workout. inspires mere mortals to climb for snow next week. nice report guys.
jake L.
wrote on April 10th, 2012 at 8:53 amA great adventure with great company, that’s what it’s all about! Splendid write up Sam, looking forward to the next instalment.
Ullr
wrote on April 10th, 2012 at 6:53 pmAWESOME AWESOME AWESOME
christian
wrote on April 10th, 2012 at 7:21 pmSICK TRIP! how much vert did that work out to roughly?
got yourself a houdini i see. one of my favorites, ever.
Sam
wrote on April 10th, 2012 at 10:40 pmIt was 11100ft of gain over 30 miles. Yeah, the houdini is awesome, I bought it for trail running (I’ve been running a ton recently), but I’ve really grown to like it for skiing as well. I didn’t even bring a shell on this trip.
powhounddd
wrote on April 11th, 2012 at 8:59 pmGreat TR, glad it worked out! The mountains there are really something, real nice pics. Oh and, just for fun: “We pushed off, praying to press past a pair of potentially problematic passes prior to parking our parkas.” would have been 2x Extra points for abusive alliteration ;)
bushman
wrote on April 11th, 2012 at 9:31 pmavoid alliteration. always
Peter
wrote on April 12th, 2012 at 10:49 pmf.f.s this is awesome, thanks guys. So beautiful, I want to be in those mountains so badly!
Sam
wrote on April 13th, 2012 at 3:10 am6 hour flight + 6 miles of hiking gets you to snow! glad you liked the photos
Roger Strong
wrote on April 16th, 2012 at 1:42 amAbsolutely stunning traverse and thanks for sharing Sam and Allen…great getting to hang with you both in the desert this weekend!
savant
wrote on April 16th, 2012 at 11:48 amThanks for the time and effort put into writing this TR. As the Boston marathon trickles by with 80 -85 temps for the day this was a nice diversion
ml242
wrote on April 16th, 2012 at 5:45 pmMust have been hard to leave so much great skiing hanging there to make it across the traverse. Looking forward to the next installation.