Whitetail Couloir
It all begins with an idea.
This was one for the record books, First day we basecamped at shadow lake, one of our favorite camping locations. The next morning Devon climbed up nearly to the top of whitetail couloir and skied down. You can watch the video here. The following day we hit Marker, Ship, Triangle, Bowback, and Kookoo lake. Next morning we hit Silt lakes and loaded our gear and headed out.
Carrying ski’s, boots, crampons, ice axes, and gear my pack weighed around 60lbs. Takes about 6 miles 2k vertical to get to Shadow Lake. With a normal pack the hike isn’t very hard. You will follow a trail until the footbridge that brings you up Sundance pass from than on you will be off trail but the walking is still easy. The next morning I started my journey to the top, roughly 3k vertical .6 miles and a 60% grade back down. Unfortunately in 2014, the year this is taking place, the snow condition wasn’t prime. There was little to no snow from the peak down a hundred feet so I wasn’t able to ski from the top. Made it to about 12k put on my skies and headed down.
The journey to Marker (highest fishable lake in Montana) was steep but relatively short. We did make a sweet rock shelter next to the giant boulder close to the outlet. Let us know if it is still there!? Although windy fishing was excellent caught lots of 20″ fish. From there the other lakes are an easy journey other than Kookoo it is a drop down (200 vertical) than hike back up. By our standards you have to touch the lake to cross it off. No fish on all but Kookoo but we did not catch anything in July 2014.
