The Falling Ice Glacier between the East and West Horns of Mount Moran at 4:45am
Eagle's Rest
The Jaw and the Cathedral Group behind in the clouds
Conor Mulroy splitting the horns below the Falling Ice Glacier
It's still winter in Jackson. Snowing every other day. The snow line is retreating but up high it's still accumulating. We were going to paddle up String Lake and across Leigh Lake to ski the NE couloir on Mt. Woodring but upon further review, it looked a bit cliffed out at the bottom. So we looked to our right up at the Falling Ice Glacier and said, "That looks cool. What do you say we grab the bull by those horns." We pulled the canoe over and tied it off to a defensive marmot's den. He dropped his aggression though when we peed on it, and he swiftly started licking it up.
As soon as we reached the snow line, we put our ski boots on and started skinning straight up the entire face, not even needing switch-backs, all the way up to the blue and gray glacier nestled in that spectacular snowy vertical cirque. The sun was shining and things started moving so we followed suit. Powder up top, turned to wet powder, turned to corn, turned to scree.
When we got to back to the lake, we snoozed in the sun by the canoe for an hour, getting up to relieve ourselves on the rocks occasionally, and these marmots would soon be there to lick it up again. We tried to get a picture of me pissing directly into the mouth of one, kind of like a beer funnel in college, but they weren't into it.
The paddle was the most tiring part of it all. My back, not used to the activity since last summer, was sore for days afterward.
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