Tobiasca, Buddy and I skied the NE couloir on the Big Humph on Saturday. The snow varied from still cold wintry chalk on North facing slopes in the couloir above 12,000', to ankle deep mank over a base of Sage down low in McGee Creek. We had to walk a little ways on the road before we hit snow, and that's melting out quickly now. Humph is a huge mountain that, like so many Eastside monsters, feels even huger than it already looks. Glad we got to ski this sweet line and am already looking forward to returning with a little more time and preparation to nail the summit scramble too.

Humphreys is the high point just left of center. The summit is 13,986'. We reached approximately 13,600 at the top of the NE couloir.


Parked in the Buttermilks, just below and South of Basin:


Peaklet dominated the horizon for the entire approach. Skirt North of Peaklet to reach Longley Lake.


Shade was in high demand on this day.


BCD skins towards Peaklet. To give an idea on the scale of the Eastside, Peaklet is basically just a sub peak on the East ridge of Humphreys. If we were to swap Tallac for Peaklet, Peaklet would be the most epic ski peak in all of Tahoe and Tallac would be an even less significant bump on the ridge of Humph.


As you approach Longley Reservoir, the first up close views of Humphreys are revealed:


Still 3,000' of climbing to go.












Good views from the ridge. Here's where Mike and Eric were hanging out for 5 days - Goddard:






Humphreys basin looked like a turbulant Arctic sea:


Summit scramble looked too dicey for toby and I with the snowy gully, snowy ledges and no protection in AT boots:




Time to ski down a long sweet line with a helluva backdrop:










Toby and Buddy handled the crux choke section easily. I noticed the blue ice on the right side rocks that makes this an epic ice climb in the Fall. The ice (and bergschrund) were well buried for our descent:










Over 2,000' of great corn skiing still left down to Longley Reservoir:




Major sage skiing on the lower slopes. At least we had boot deep slush to keep our speed down.



5,500' vertical, felt like it was 120 degrees up there, 10 hours car to car......beers please!


We felt so good we skied Red Slate the next day. I'll try to add a bit to that thread one of these evenings.

Great Job guys, and awesome TR Joe! Thanks.

Although i find it a little depressing that buddy has skied more sick lines than i have. I think in future guidebooks, along with listing the first descents by ski, board, etc, they should list first descents by paw... No doubt buddy would get credit for many of those. :lol:

Liked the red-slate TR off of your web site too. First time i checked out that link. You got some nice write-ups there.

cheers,

abe

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More BC action next week, right here on ESPN 8, "The OCHO" :)

thanx for the sweet memory jolt. but one lil discrepency i noticed was that we skied the north couloir, not the ne couloir which was our ascent route.

great shots. Humphries is huge and looks awsome. You can always see it no matter where you are. I wanted to go up the rock when I went up there too but didn't have the know-how. I was told it's 5th class, I"ll have to look it up in the book. The view of humphries from the bottom of the ski is probably my favorite.

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www.thebackcountry.net
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SCHWEET!!!

Did BCD appear then dissapear on the trip?


This pic really puts the climb in perspective.

Man! Is that thing not as steep as I remember? Cuz I would never have dreamed a dog could send it w/out just tumbling down the whole thing. Your dog rocks! I actually wished I woulda climbed the chute to the right like you guys did. When I snowboarded this a few years ago I climbed the main chute only to come 20 ft. short of topping out. I came across a breakable windcrust w/ unconsolidated sugar snow underneath just above the choke and couldn't get any purchase to move up the last little bit to the top. So I had to build a platform in sugar/horror snow to put my board on.
Did you guys have any issues crossing the bergschrund? I almost fell in it when I collapsed a 5 ft. x 50 ft. snowbridge and was standing right on the edge. It was only like 15 ft. deep, but wouldn't have been a fun tumble.
Nice work guys! One of my favorites. You make me want to go back soon.

In my next life I want to be reincarnated as gimpy's dog. Buddy probably has more crazy Sierra descents under his belt than most of the humans on this forum. I remember a video bcrider did last year that showed him and gimpy going down 3rd Pillar. :shock:

when we skied it, the n couloir is a pretty consistent pitch maybe pushing 40 degrees and possibly steeper in the crux. bergschrund is, or was, totally filled in and not an issue. we were gonna just boot up our descent line, but our late start forced to stay away from huge cliff faces shedding its cargo in the blazing sun. buddy's never ragdolled down a whole chute though he has for a quick spell due to hidden ice or unexpected drops. usually his owner is falling in those spots as well :wink:

After two failed attempts over the past four years, one due to waist deep slogging above the bergshrund and one due to CT12 Q1 failures on the huge slope from the 10700 lake to the upper bench, I finally got my north couloir drop. And it was amazing. Little sloppy booting up, but rode amazing. Consistent snow to the lake, a few more pitches of fun below to about 9500ish.
Le approach...


Moonset


Weston topping out. He just started coming to play in the mountains this year. I think he liked this zone.


Dropping!


Chilling on the edge of a rock while Weston downclimbed. Nice place to kick it fo sho!


I think I make less turns than skiers, haha


Veeeeeerrrry nice clouds


Definitely a top 5 Sierra descent line, for so many reasons. Don't believe? Try it. Horam expecta. Veniet.

Un dia bonita en los Buttermilks!

From the looks of this pic and your tracks that snow was awesome!
Umm, how long have you been boarding?

ah, I love the asthetics of this one from far away

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Mike Schwartz
www.thebackcountry.net
mike@thebackcountry.net