Gravel Creek Glacier Snow Machine Adventure

Although I didn't end up skiing or climbing all day, I have to admit I felt a little bit worked anyway. Bill's snow machine as it turns out, is VERY heavy, especially when its buried in snow or lying on the wrong side. Bill wanted to recon via snow machine the Glacier at the end of Gravel creek, Doug and him had been up a ways a couple days before, but the going was even more challenging for them on that day.

Gravel Creek Glacier

 

The day was blue bird, completely sunny and magnificent. The mountains back there are steep and rugged. The avalanche danger was high is some places and questionable in others, tons of stuff had already slid, in some places there wasn't much more snow to go.

Darn It!

 

The Mat Valley snow pack honestly leaves a lot to be desired. Its pretty much about 4 feet of bottomless sugar snow, it would collapse if you farted on it. I swear the only thing that kept me from sinking up to my eyeballs was my crotch. Bill had the same problem.

Darn It Again!

 

Definitely some inspiring looking peaks back there to climb, but this was not the day to do it. So we turned around and headed out.

Beautiful Peaks Galore