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Iced on Ice Mountain
Ski Descent of the Refrigerator Couloir on Ice Mountain, June 23 2024
When in Rome!! The fridge is an aesthetic line set deep in the Sawatch with massive walls and a neat summit scramble. After our absymal experience in the tetons it was nice to have a fun, easy day!
At 11~ miles rountrip this is no short day, but it's also one of the few lines still filled in where you can get almost 2000 feet of good skiing! We left just around sunrise and had some beautiful views on the way!
There is actually a pretty good trail all the way up into the basin, but I can see with any snow on the ground it would be nearly impossible to follow. Easy for this time of year!
There was consistant snow from 11,400, but we questionally elected to follow the talus on the rock glacier where we finally got on snow at around 11,400. From there there was some sidestepping up the weird halfpipe like basin to the base of the line.
We met a couple die-hard 14er baggers who were talking about all the 13ers in the sawatch! They happily let me and Spencer (but mostly Spencer) break up the couloir.
The summit reward was awesome! Very refreshing. It helped distract from the 4th (supposedly 3rd) class scramble to the summit. Scary with ski boots! I found a better way down which probably stuck to 3rd. Leaps of faith are very scary on ski boots!
The descent was great! The line is pretty complex with a 50+ degree windlip to navigate and then a super narrow ice bulge crux (still had some snow). It was pretty awesome overall! Could really only jump turn until below the ice crux but below that it was time to open it up! Great turns for this time of year.
We were able to ski all the way down to 10,400 where we relatively quickly found the trail again. The 4.5 miles back were pretty brutal! It reminded me this line is not in fact a short day. Regardless, it was an incredible last line of the year! Made up for our suffering in the tetons... Until next season!