I freewheeled at the back until my leg, the final portion (and easiest!) of our day.
There are dozens of reasons to hire a professional mountain guide, not the least of which is having insurance to get out of a jam when the weather gods, karma, and Donald Trump conspire to wreck your day. We prepped two tour plans today, an “ideal” tour up Loveland Basin and the Dot Glacier to a peak called Tones Temple. We planned to schralp the mega-hein off Tones, then descend the Worthington Glacier to the road. Sadly the weather shut us down pretty hard, but we gave it to the ridge in the hopes the sky might open up.
No dice! But herein lies another reason to hire a mountain guide: she or he has practiced whiteout navigation on a featureless, crevasse-riddled glacier. By no means am I the jedi master concerning glaciers, but it was cool to tour with a competent gang, everybody working on the same skills. AMGA courses are cool because you’ve also got an instructor in your back pocket, so if you really blow it, s/he can bail you out.
We’re on our exam now, so tomorrow we ski into the Hoodoo Glacier, bivy, then come out Saturday…and oh yes, plenty of terrain to (hopefully!) ski back there! Stay tuned.
Lastly…fun day…and here’s a pic showing you exactly what I saw, which is to say…not much.
