Y Couloir

Black Mountain - Absaroka Range

Date: May 4, 2019
Distance: 13.4 miles
Elevation Gain: 5,700 ft
Moving Time: 9.5 hours
Partner: Trey W.
Link to Strava Activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/2345248217

Skis: Black Diamond Helio 95 183 cm
Boots: Salomon MTN Explore

Camera: Sony A7RIII
Lens: Sony 24-105 F/4

Spring was in full force, so it was time to start attempting objectives that aren’t stable enough in most winter conditions. Trey and I had our eyes on Y Couloir. It’s a SW Montana classic and when our schedules lined up, we decided to give it a shot.

We headed towards the Pine Creek Trailhead after a full day moving Trey into an apartment he was subleasing for the summer. The drive to the trailhead was quick and had some of the smoothest Forest Service roads I’ve ever been on. Our plan was to stay at the Pine Creek Campground, but after we pulled into a spot, the camp host quickly rolled over in his golf cart to inform us that the campground was closed and wasn’t open until May 15. Oh well, I guess sleeping at the trailhead it is. We found a surprisingly nice day use only area, and decided to roll the dice and make it our home for the next two nights. It had not one, but two picnic tables and a fire ring. Who has a fire in the evening and then drives home afterwards and doesn’t camp???

We got camp set up and I started preparing dinner. Frozen Potstickers were on the menu, but I managed to ruin over half of them by mistaking Dr. Bronners for oil (sorry again, Trey). That’s what I get for drinking 2 beers before dinner and keeping the two liquids in unmarked bottles. We got a little bit of sleep, before the alarm went off at 5:00 am. Getting out of bed is surprisingly easy when skiing is on the agenda. We whipped up some potatoes and eggs and we’re on the trail shortly after sunrise at 6:30 am.

The first 2 miles of the trail were dry and we were cruising. We figured we’d be at Pine Creek Lake in no time. We couldn’t have been more wrong... The dry trails quickly turned into deep, patchy snow drifts and the joys of post holing began. There wasn’t enough snow cover to warrant donning skins so we trudged along at a very slow pace. It was impossible to follow the summer trail with all the snow, but we stayed in the general vicinity of it. About 4 miles in, we were finally able to put on skis to end the post holing (for now).

Just before we arrived to Pine Creek Lake, we encountered some frozen wet slide debris that warranted breaking out the crampons and ice axe. We weren’t expecting to need the ice tools this early in the trip, and I’m sure it could have been avoided if we had a better idea where we were going. I had my ice axe in one hand and my inverted ski poles in the other. Next thing I knew, my collapsible poles were missing the top half. I retraced my steps to try to find them, but had no luck. Having one usable pole makes skinning and skiing a little more challenging, but I wasn’t going to let a little pole misfortune get in the way of skiing the Y Couloir!

We finally made it to Pine Creek Lake and ran into another group that got an earlier start than us and were setting up camp at the edge of the frozen lake. After a brief conversation, we learned they were also planning on skiing Y Couloir. Trey and I continued trucking along and were greeted with optimal skinning conditions from the lake to the base of the couloir. Once the gradient picked up, we decided to start bootpacking. The weather was quickly heating up so we were in a hurry to get to the top before the snow warmed up too much. In retrospect, we should have skinned higher up as the snow was very soft and not easy to boot up. Unfortunately, good skiing conditions usually don’t make good booting conditions.

Trey and I took turns setting the boot pack and soon we were at the base of the Y Couloir where it splits. We decided to ski the west branch as it was a little shorter and seemed to be less sun affected. We arrived to the top around 1:00 pm. We ate a quick snack and transitioned to prepare to ski down. The views at the top were spectacular. Every direction you looked were amazing views of all the surrounding mountain ranges. You could see the Beartooths, Crazies, Bridgers, Madisons and Hyalite. To add to it all, we had a pair of bald eagles fly above us. I had never seen bald eagles in this type of terrain before and it was awesome.

Y Couloir isn’t overly narrow or steep, but it’s still technical enough to keep you on your toes. Skiing with one pole added to the overall pucker factor. The snow was soft and we were back at the lake before we knew it. We skinned across the lake and then ripped skins and got a little more skiing in. And by skiing, I mean survival skiing through refrozen avalanche debris. Before long, it was back to everyone’s favorite activity: post holing. One wrong turn and a little bush whacking and we were back on the dry trail.

The day took far longer than we expected, but we were able to complete our objective and get back to camp before dark. We found a creek to take a dip in and then I whipped up some Elk Indian Curry. The Dr. Bronners was quarantined inside the cab of the truck before dinner this time to avoid anymore tragic cooking mistakes. We feasted and reflected on the great day we had.