It all started with a near death experience. The last time I attempted a ski traverse of the Picket Range, I slept–alone– within 100 feet of a debris pile that nearly killed me. Last time, I chose, three days into a six day trip, to bail after almost losing my life to a skier-triggered slide that poured down on me from above.
Last time, I hadn’t trusted the snow. It was warm enough that things were heating up quickly, but it had been cold enough recently that the snowpack was far from isothermic. In my opinion we were toying with spring conditions on top of winter layer cake. Constantly triggering loose, wet point releases was fine, but when those had started to step down to a deeper layer, causing full-on wet slabs, things started to get scary for me. Having one such wet slab miss me thanks to a serendipitously-placed boulder, well, that was an experience that screamed, “lucky,” and I didn’t want to stick around to find out if there would be many more second chances.
My route had been slightly different than that of Jason and Forest: they were on skis, and I was on a board. Jason had said that a snowboard, “just wasn’t the tool for the job.” We snowboarders–and splitboarders– often do look at terrain differently: traversing doesn’t hold quite the appeal that it might two our two-planked compadres, and sometimes slashing and spraying is more of our style than a series of hop turns. Nonetheless, despite my slightly alternate micro-route-finding techniques, I knew that a splitboard was actually the perfect tool for the job of traversing the Picket range. But that, for everyone’s safety, it made more sense to return with a few like-minded men (or women, though is often the sad reality of my life, more men turned up eager for the job), who also happened to be on snowboards.
