A Fifty Classic Ski Descent of North America that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. This one was especially special since Chris and I crossed paths interning at some random company back in my hometown on the east coast many lifetimes ago.

Just two guys from Virginia ending up on a mountain in Washington together tackling a coveted line, how absurd the universe is sometimes. I think often about the random trajectories and collisions of people’s destinies. You can really never know where you’ll end up and I guess that’s the beauty of living sometimes.

Sunset on Shuksan the evening prior

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Scoping out the top of the choke getting into the main couloir. A bit of wind effect visible on the snow surface, which just turned out to be wind scoured snow with minimal avalanche danger.

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The bottom of the line is looking a little thin though. In most years this would be completely snow covered.

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The sun setting even more as we finish scoping out the line

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Good morning Shuksan!

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At the base of the mountain ready to start heading up

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We were warned about an avalanche that ripped a couple days before we arrived for the weekend

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What a weird place to be for two Virginians

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Border Peaks

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The obligatory boot out from the bottom of the drainage back into the ski area in weird snow

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Notes

• This was probably ~14 miles and ~8700 feet of vertical gain, since we did another lap on the White Salmon Glacier, taking a little under 9 hours.
• The only thing I regret is not getting a binocular photo at our line back at the car.
• I might have to revisit this line in better conditions. I hit some rocks at the bottom of the line, and the lower part of the White Salmon drainage was very thin (one of the worst years for the low-elevation snowpack in Washington).