The Halfpipe

Last weekend, as I recounted in the last post, the team started to explore the North Bowl.  One of the highlights of the North Bowl is the 'Halfpipe'.  It is the middle one of 3 huge ravines that drain out of the bottom of the bowl.  Long ago there was a cirque glacier in the bowl and at various moments in time it melted out via different channels and carved the drainages.  Right now the middle ravine is the main water channel out of the bowl.  But this was not always so - hence the other huge ravines that now drain very little water.

The big ravine catches a lot of snow and gets its name because it is quite literally a natural halfpipe.  Just like the ones you see in snowboard competitions - except ours is a lot bigger.  It is an enormous amount of fun to shoot up the side and head straight down and then shoot up the wall on the other side of the ravine.  Just like a real halfpipe!

But then we end up way down in the ravine - far down in the North Bowl on the other side of the mountain from the car - and so have to climb all the way back up to the top of the North Bowl to ski back down to the car.  As Nora puts it, 'this is paying for the halfpipe run'.  Near the top of the sweaty and long climb out she declared, 'it is still worth it!'
Patrick