Week Three on Turnigan/Thompson Pass.
We left Thompson Pass to go grab Paige Brady and Jason West so they could do some filming with us for the second two weeks. Paige had been skiing in the Tordrillos the week prior and got frostbite on both her big toes.
Ouch! Paige's toe in the Tordrillos
After witnessing her toes in person we realized she would not be getting out with us. Thanks to Paige and her family we did some much needed laundry and they made us a great dinner. Then it was off to the airport to grab Jason.
Jason's first morning in the RV. If you look close enough you can check out Jake's nipple in the background. He wanted me to point that out.
The plan was to head to Turnigan Pass and see what we could find. None of us had been there before.
Jason leading the charge his first day on Turnigan Pass.
Our first day there the skies were super milky, but it was nice to get out skinning and check things out. That night brought new snow and a lot of wind. The next day was pretty sunny but we were scared of the new snow and wind combo.
Jason skinning in the wind.
Things got hot quick and we weren’t loving the conditions. Jason triggered two small soft slab avalanches on one run, so we decided we didn’t want to push it anymore. Turnigan Pass was a fun place but we decided that we wanted to go back to Thompson Pass since there seemed to be more snow there and we know the terrain better.
Turnigan Pass
We'll come back someday.
So we hit the road to Thompson Pass. We were planning on getting there Wednesday night, but the RV decided it didn’t want to and the exhaust line broke on us. So we spent the night in Glennallen. Apparently mechanics leave Glennallen in April, so we headed to Copper Center and got it fixed. We hadn’t missed anything on the pass because when we got there it was puking snow. We woke up the next day to about 6″ of new snow in the parking lot. Again knowing that they had received a bunch of new snow and it came with wind we played it safe on the benches.
Jason heading up.
Paul trying to make the benches more exciting.
Jason skiing the pow.
Jake throwing a front flip.
Apparently we made the right call not going bigger that day because when the heli ops got down they told us about how they were triggering 3′ slabs all day. Friday and Saturday have both been gray and windy and people have still been triggering slides so we have stuck to playing insane amounts of Hearts (the card game) in the RV. I hope week four brings us some stability and blue skies.
JH
