TR: Centennial Mountains - The Graybird Chronicles

[Pow4Brains]

Where: Centennial Mountains MT, Jefferson Peak

When: February 23rd - 26th, 2007

Participants:
CO crew - Pow4brains, lurker/YoBizzo
Non-mags
Wisco rep - PT
Victoria ID - Norm
Jackson boyz – Scott and Rick (you Jackson folks and thank these two for the soon to be open mountain biking ONLY trails off the pass)
Bozeman in the house - Neil
Socal junkie – Graham

Objective: Eat powdered doughnuts and bag Jefferson Peak

4 months ago we booked a weekend at the Hellroaring Yurt with the hopes of bottomless pow. Needless to say, our dreams were crushed with only 2 weeks to go and no signs of any new significant snowfall. A snow dance was in order, and thankfully, it didn’t fall upon blind eyes. Snotel as of 2/22 equaled 58.6” and by the time we walked out it was sitting pretty at 95.6”.
Our Yurt Trip was booked though Tim at Hellroaring Ski Adventures which included, a sled ride to the non-motorized boundary and trail breaking to the yurt, but after that we were on our own. The yurt was really two large canvas tents hooked together and outfitted with all the goodies. One pleasant surprise was a natural spring just a short skin away, and needless to say, resulted in a much longer cocktail hour. Tim can arrange anything from a fully guided trip to something along the lines of our trip, which only ended up being $130 per person for 4 days.

Time for the fun to begin! Sleds loaded with 2 cases of beer (yes those are PBR tall boys), 3 handles of booze and food only worthy of car camping.

Dammit those tall boys and 2 pounds of bacon are heavy!

After a 3 ½ mile skin with 1700’ vert and 80# packs there was still some time to make a couple of turns……….Houston, I don’t think we have a problem, it's still dumping!




Time for the evening rituals to begin.



Day 2 - Light packs and fresh legs
Quit bitchin’ about your head, we have BACON!

That there is some coooold water!

Obligatory skin path stoke.

The playground

PT enjoying some solitude.

Graham in search of the whiteroom.



I need more!

PT back for seconds.


Day 3 - Could it really be true?
Nope, that's all your gonna get and like it!

Regulators, mount up!

You mean we have more than ONE playground?

Scott likes wind drifts.

Norm likes being able to see, sometimes......

......so much he goes back for more.

YoBizzo and Norm open and close the door for each other.

Graham says; me tooo, yay!!!

Yo Bizzo with some first class slutin'.






Oh the love/hate relationship of the greybird……..the snow kept coming and stayed perfect, we tested our navigation skillz, but we were “stuck” to skiing low angle pow. Don’t worry Jefferson, we’ll be back, and thanks for the powdered doughnuts, they were delicious
Special shout out to PT for blazing trail all weekend. Makes me feel great when you can come from WI after not skiing for 5 years and still kick my ass (up hill that is )!

[adam]

Nice TR! Looks like some nice snow.

[mtnbikerskierchick]

Looks like a great yurt trip! I wouldn't worry about being "stuck" skiing low angle pow at all!!!!!!

[sick.bird]

CAW!!!!!!! CAW!!!!!!!

[climb2ski]

nice work.... sounds like one hell of a trip

[grskier]

Nice work

[skiHOG]

hell yea, killin it. nice TR.

[shirk]

greybird ain't bad....when you got blower pow

looks like fun

[summit]

WHITEROOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!

[lifelinksplit]

holy shit that is some deep snow especially for the snow bridge not even being in affect. Walking the creek, I have been there the last three years and have never seen the creek not crossable.

[Bring On The Snow]

sick, Nice TR

[MOHSHSIHd]

Owwwww......My pants hurt!!!

[Rontele]

Pow,

Killer TR man. I love your "playgrounds"

[iskibc]

JACKPOT.

Great trip report Andrew. Conditions look prime.

[alberta_hoser]

Well played.

[Dside11-11]

Uh, yeah. That looks like a HELLLL of a lot of fun.

[FrankZappa]

P4B's and crew score some "Oh, so" goods! Thanks for the report you lucky bastids.

[Yeti]

Our Yurt Trip was booked though Tim at Hellroaring Ski Adventures which included, a sled ride to the non-motorized boundary and trail breaking to the yurt, but after that we were on our own.

I'm curious -- so the outfitter brings you into the boundary, and then... tromps down the snow in front of you as you skin in?

My buddy has the same dragsled for his snowmobile. I recommend it heartily.

[IridePow]

White, white, white......... NICE!

[Pow4Brains]

I'm curious -- so the outfitter brings you into the boundary, and then... tromps down the snow in front of you as you skin in?

My buddy has the same dragsled for his snowmobile. I recommend it heartily.

Yup, sure made the lug in a lot easier. We had to blaze trail on the way out and even with the lighter packs the ~3 feet of pow made work out of it. A sacrifice I’d like to make every time.

And yes, those dragsleds worked awesome! One guy actually would ride on the back of it like a dog sled which allowed us to have 4 doodz per sled.

[Yo Bizzo]

Nice work Andrew... I'll try to get my pics up and chop up my video and try to get that posted as well. Good Times-Good Times...

[Kya]

Faceshot City!!!

[juanbendedknee]

Anyone been here this season?

[Pow4Brains]

Yup, last weekend was fun. After 2 years of graybird we got some sun and had a blast looking around and getting on top of Jefferson.

The first day in started off as past years.





Norm's pregnant wife sent us off proper with pre-cooked bacon and fresh baked cookies.





Breakfast handled and the sleds loaded up.





Forecast for pain.



The ~90 pounds of booze hoofed in between the 7 of us was well worth the sufferfest in the nights to come.





Some things don't weigh as much.



Tim bought a new tent which pretty much eliminated "the drip".





That evening we went for a stroll up to Doug's for a few quick turns.



The next day we awoke to 5" of new sitting on top of a bomber base and headed out for Jefferson. First, cross the creek.





And we're off.



The objective for the day.



As you can see, Jefferson is benched at the top and offers 2800' of vert from the yurt.



Up, up, up.





At the summit.



The views were Grand.





The north face of Jefferson will be an option in the future with a few more logistics worked in.







And down.

[Pow4Brains]

And out as the alpenglow set in and moon rose.









The next day recycled pow was on the menu so we headed back to this north facing ridge.



Did you see Waldo?



Should be good snow when the skin path looks like this.



Then down.





Next up, over to Miner's. This year a knuckle dragger and knee dropper attended.



Tele skiers can even make crashing look smoooove.



No need to wipe thy eye.



And a quick up and out over to Pyramid and back to the Yurt.



Saw some signs of wildlife chasing each other.



And some wildlife.



All and all another great year.