Broken Top's 8:00 Snow Cliff and 1:00 Face

May 10th, 2011

Skiers: Erik Schmidt and Lindsey Clark

Erik has been spending quite a bit of time out at Broken Top this season, and is well on his way to climbing and skiing every viable ski line on the mountain. He'd had his eye on a particular line that seemed "in" this season... not really a couloir, this particular ski line was just a skinny ramp of snow wedged between two huge, intersecting cliffs. He really wanted to ski it, and we agreed that this year's epic La Nina season may be the last time in a while that it was even a possibility.

Broken Top from the wilderness boundary

We skinned across the meadow, over the moraine, and into the bowl on a sunny morning. Rounding the corner toward 9:00 couloir, I was rather unclear about the objective. "You want to ski that?" I asked, "because if so, you're on your own. I'll just stand here and watch." The line looked really steep, really narrow, rather exposed, and the snow didn't look friendly at all. Not my idea of a fun line. Of course, Erik loves this kind of stuff and soon was on his way up the snow cliff.

Erik booting up 8:00 snow cliff

After about 40 minutes, he reached his high point in a moat near the top of the line. At the very top hung a giant cornice, not exactly something you'd want to climb up and over. After a gear transition in the moat, he was ready to drop in.

Erik negotiated the couloir with a variety of hop turns and a little sideslipping here and there. Everything was going great. Then, at one point, he made a turn, slid out, and started sliding right toward a cliff! Fortunately he stopped himself pretty quickly and made turns out of the couloir and down the apron intact.

As he skied down to me, I could tell he was totally hopped up on adrenaline: that amazing cocktail of fear plus accomplishment. These were the raddest ski tracks I'd seen laid down on Broken Top all season!

"I was puckered as fu%k!!"

With that ski line checked off his list, we agreed to cruise across the bowl to a more mellow line in the 1:00 area. Two skiers had already set a boot pack, so we used it about halfway up, then split off toward the right to access some steeper terrain.

Two skiers headed up for round two on 1:00 face

At our high point, we saw some other skiers down below who'd used the orignal boot pack to ski the more traditional 1:00 face.

Two skiers at the top of 1:00 face with Middle and North Sisters in the background

From the left: 8:00 snow cliff, 9:00 couloir, 11:00 couloir

Erik about to drop in to 1:00 face

We skied the 1:00 line, then booted back up again to ski another variation that led us past the bottom of 3:00 couloir and back out to the wilderness boundary.

Yet another stellar day out on Broken Top!