Epic Tour

I woke early as I had planned a day in the backcountry with a new friend, Davis, from town. We picked up a third, Ryan, when his planned companions were no shows. Davis and I had been planning on skiing the North Face of Mt Emmons, which required staging a car one valley over from the trailead on the South side. After shuttling the cars, the three of us departed from the trailhead around 8:30 or so. The skin up to our intended ski route was the same as the one I did to Red Lady Bowl a week and a half ago. The trip up was uneventful and we probably gained the summit ridge in about 2 hours or so. It was a little windy and cold up there so we decided to ski part of the route and then break for lunch. The turns down the North facing aspect (Redwell Basin) were pretty soft with just the slightest wind crust for the first few hundred feet. After skiing about a thousand vertical we stopped and reapplied our skins for a short 400 ft climb up and around the basin to get into another basin for some more turns. After the climb we broke for lunch above Wolverine Bowl which is an amazing natural feature. We soaked up the sun for about 20 minutes and then dove into the trees and skied out 2400 vertical feet to the valley floor. Once we hit the valley we had to cross the Slate River and then skate out nearly 2.5 miles to the car along the unplowed road. After we had collected our various vehicles we went out for gyros and beer at Pitas in Paradise. Another good day here in the valley.