Splitboarding in Flagstaff
Rumor is that there are four splitboarders in Flagstaff, AZ. About two weeks ago, three of ‘em went on a tour on the Kachina Peaks.
I’ve done the classic Inner Basin traverse a few times, and on this day I got to lead JE and Rico on their first IB Traverse. Of course I insisted on taking the hard way up from the base of AZ Snowbowl. Not that I wanted to make it harder, but so far this season I had not yet been in the areas of Dutchman, Alison Clay and Temptations and wanted to see what they were looking like…
As is usually the case, conditions became firm and icy on the ridge between Temptations and A.C.
Eventually we made it to the top of Humphrey’s Cirque and each of us dropped our own line.
JE at the top of his line.
Rico near the middle of his line.
Me near the bottom of my line.
For round two we headed up core ridge. I dropped a glove, which slid for several 100 feet… so I ended up taking this line to retrive the glove.
Dropping a glove in the backcountry can be BAD news… but this day it all worked out fine.
The line JE and Rico chose for round 2.
Happy to get my glove and rejoin the gang.
From there it was fun low angle tree skiing out to Lockett Meadow.
Here’s a low fidelity video of Humphreys Cirque and the low-angle trees to Lockett Meadow.
All photos by Rico, JE and me. Video by JE.