On Saturday the 7^th I headed up to Bridgeport to meet Chris Gallardo and Darren Weimeyer, who were driving down from Tahoe. The plan was to head into Little Slide Canyon, and see what we could find.

 

From the trailhead at Twin Lakes it’s a few miles to the bottom of Little Slide. Once across the river, we got lost in the swamp, which seems to be a common occurrence in those parts:

 

After finding the right way, we continued up into the canyon.

 

Below Kettle Peak:

 

At the next bench we got a view of the left couloir of the Hulk, which looked excellent. This one has been on my list for a while, but the lower apron tends to get scoured by the wind. Since it seemed in shape, we decided to give it a shot.

 

Views:

 

Skinning towards the base of the chute I picked up one of my skis and noticed something funny. My binding was broken! The slider track had been getting worn, and I knew it needed to be replaced. And now, thanks to my procrastination, I’d be walking out at the end of the day.

Even with the broken piece, it seemed to stay together well enough as a snowboard, so I continued up the chute.

 

In the chute:

 

About halfway up there is another chute that descends behind the Hulk, and connects with this one. The cleft at the top was letting in just a tiny bit of sunlight:

Past that, it got steeper, and the snow got deeper. We were up to our armpits at times, but somehow managed to swim to the top.

Darren topping out:

 

Blacksmith Canyon:

 

Snowboard time:

 

 

Back into the sun on the apron:

 

 

 

 

 

and into the shadows:

 

From there, we headed back towards the meadow, where I was expecting three miles of post-holing thanks to my broken binding. Thankfully, someone had snowshoed out that way during the day, so I was able to follow their re-frozen tracks with only a little bit of wallowing.