Broken Top's 3:00 Couloir

February 1st, 2013

Skiers: Erik Schmidt and Lindsey Clark

"Hey! We got here in 8 minutes!" I yelled over to Erik as we were parking our snowmobiles at the wilderness boundary near Broken Top.  It is about 5.5 miles from Dutchman Flat to where we parked, so I was pretty impressed by how quickly we got there. "The snow was really easy to ride!"

We put on our skins and cruised across the big meadow leading to the glacially-eroded crater, or what I consider to be the front of Broken Top. I fell in love with Broken Top the moment I laid eyes on him (and yes, he is a him). Craggy and pointy and crazy looking... my kind of mountain for sure! An hour skinning across the meadow gives me plenty of time to stare at the mountain: enjoying its unique character, remembering epic ski days past, and dreaming about adventures that are about to go down.

Our objective was 3 o'clock couloir. The ski lines in the crater are named after the numbers on a clock: with the summit being 12:00, you can work left to see the popular climbing routes 9:00 and 11:00 or work right to see some fun ski lines like 1:00 and 2:30.

3:00 is a giant ski slope walled in by orange and brown striped cliffs. I'd skied on that side of the mountain a few times before, but never this particular line. 3:00 can get hairy with plenty of rockfall and balls of rime ice littering the snow, so timing is important. On this day, the time was right!

We skinned up the apron and into the couloir proper. Erik, always up for a challenge, skinned all the way to the top, up and through some cliffs to the left which he dubbed the 3:00 variation. I switched to bootpacking about a third of the way up, traded my ski pole for an ice axe, and felt like a ski mountaineer for the first time in over a year. Yes!

We met at the top and really soaked in the views. It is gorgeous up there!

Erik skied off the backside of the couloir toward the tarn, made some turns in windpack, then climbed back up and over into the top of 3:00. I was standing all alone on the top of 3:00 variation, looking down the steep shot below my skis, getting really excited to ski my line! The snow was soft and almost slushy corn, and if there is a type of snow that I really know how to ski, it is corn snow!

I dropped in first, making turns down a steep, beautiful slope with dramatically-striped rock all around me. The line didn't drop directly down fall line, but turned toward skier's left, which made my descent feel even more adventurous!  Eventually my line connected back with 3:00 proper, and I got to stop and take some really great photos of Erik ripping it!

Skiing the rest of the couloir, I enjoyed making huge turns and really let my skis get going. At first, I was doing my own thing, but I somehow ended up following Erik's turns exactly. It's funny how that happens sometimes... it must be love.

Skiing off the mountain was "woo hoo!s" all the way to the snowmobiles. There was definitely a high five or two. Psyched to finally ski 3:00 couloir, and on such a fantastic, sunny, warm, excellent day!