Route: Widowmaker (NW) Couloir

Team: ted, Chris Carmichael, Dave Rhodes

If you just came off Sunlight, then Windom naturally follows. Less than 1000 vertical feet and about a half mile away, to get one and not try for the other after getting this far away from home is crazy. For skiers it’s even more sensible, Sunlight’s ski line faces south and Windom’s northwest so it’s a perfect one-two from high camp as far as timing the snow with the sun is concerned.

We traversed as far as we could towards the base of the Northwest Face and peered up the classic ‘Widowmaker’ line. Although thin, it looked skiable. We cramponed up the the couloir, the snow went all the way to the summit block.

Weather was blowing in and would stay through tomorrow, we had so far made two summits and were psyched, but we also needed South Eolus so we were happy to have had built some extra days into the trip. We could wait out weather and maybe still come home with all three.

It was a fun ski down the Widowmaker— in the high forty degree range for steepness. Skiing almost all the way back to the tents, we started planning to hunker down for the day tomorrow. Eolus would have to wait an extra day- snow was coming.