Talk to "The Hand" - North Absaroka

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TomTuriano
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Talk to "The Hand" - North Absaroka

Post by TomTuriano »

I received this trip report from Torsten Prahl on 3/15/06:

Mission accomplished!!!

People: myself, Kris Erickson, Conrad Anker, Adam Knoff, and "Bean" Bowers.

Date: March 14, 2006

Route: We left the trail head the south fork of Deep Creek @ 9:00AM. We skinned up the drainage until we came upon a gully feature that lead up to the summit of Delano (basically the south face of Delano). We reached the summit sometime around 2:00PM. We then skied two couloirs off of the western side of the north face of Delano. Kris and Bean skied a steeper couloir by cutting a cornice at the entrance. Conrad, Adam, and myself skied a larger couloir to the west. This brought us down approx 1500 - 2000 ft to the north drainage of Delano.

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Bean Bowers skis the bowl on the north face of Mount Delano after skiing the red couloir with Erickson. Prahl, Anker, and Knoff skied the blue line.
Photo by Kris Erickson http://www.kristoffererickson.com/

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Bean approaches crux of red route...20 feet of 55 degrees and narrow.
Photo by Kris Erickson http://www.kristoffererickson.com/

We then skinned west to a ridge line that extends north to "The Hand". This was approx a 1500 ft gain in elevation and then about a mile skin on the ridgeline. We reached the top of "The Hand" around 5:00 PM. We skied down the ridgeline of the Hand torwards the west. We had brought a photo of the desired line we wanted to ski with us so we could reference landmarks from the top of the terrain. This helped out a bit, but we really just lucked out in finding the couloir off the Hand. The skiing on the top of the hand was great, shin to knee deep.

Once we entered the couloir the snow got a bit more dense and punchy. The line itself was picture perfect. Probably a 40-degree couloir close to 2000ft long. The couloir itself cliffed out at the end, but there is a small exit torwards the bottom where you can access a ramp which leads into another small couloir. After skiing out you of that feature you have another 1500 ft of mellow skiing to the drainage of the north fork of Deep Creek. From there we hooked up with a trail that lead out of the North Fork of Deep Creek. We were at the car by 7:00PM.

That about sums it up....definitely a Livingston Classic. If anyone has any knowledge of a prior ascent or descent, it would be great to compare notes.

Torsten

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Photo by Torsten Prahl

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Photo by Kris Erickson http://www.kristoffererickson.com/
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