I got out in the snow both days this last weekend. I was coaxed up to Lookout on Sunday with Ben, Leslie, and Aaron. We got in some nice early runs, but the snow got worse throughout the day. Still a little too warm for proper 'powpow'. Was not able to snag any pictures from Sunday.
On Saturday Kyle and I headed up towards the Gem couloir on Trapper peak. I forgot my skins in Missoula, but decided I would boot pack as long as I could keep the stoke up. After four hours of hiking I was punching through to my waist. Needless to say, the stoke was barely intact. The new cover pic for the blog is my mid-post-holing self portrait.
Only boot-deep at this point
The snow is still wet below roughly 8500'. After consulting a map, we believe we got up to somewhere around 9200'-9500'. The visibility was not very good as we gained a ridge. We ended up cruising back down the ridge instead of trying to drop in for a run. There was just no way that I was going to hike back up to the without skins.
We skied most of the ridge and hiked out the last 5 minutes that is too tight to ski. As we worked out way back down the road towards the truck Kyle yelled down to me that he was bleeding from his leg. I ran up hill as he worked his way down. When he pulled up his pant leg there was a lot of blood. We deduced that he had somehow gotten a puncture wound while skiing down and not noticed until his leg started to feel numb. We did what we could to stop the bleeding and skootched our way the last 30 minutes to the truck. I navigated the icy road as Kyle applied pressure and swapped bandage after bandage as they became soaked with blood.
Naturally, I had brought a growler to fill up at Blacksmith Brewery on the way home. Over the last months I have grown accustom to ending a day in the Bitterroots with a pint at Blacksmith. The bleeding had nearly stopped as we neared Stevensville, so I asked Kyle if he thought he could drink a beer. Long story a little shorter, Kyle sucked down 3 pints and started bleeding like crazy again. We decided we better have someone look at it since it had been bleeding non-stop or something like 4 hours. Hobbs took one look, declared it was an artery and that the hospital should be the next stop. Kyle got a couple stitches as a result.
The moral of the story is...I don't really know. Maybe carry a first aid kit when you are getting rad. Maybe don't thin your blood with beer when you've nicked an artery. Anyways, we had a good time and everyone survived.
