No I’m not talking about my age, though at 43 that would also make sense of the title. As of last spring I’ve skied 30 of the “50 Classic Ski Descents of North America”. It’s a large picture book if you haven’t heard of it, or seen it on your buddies coffee table. It contains some of the mega-classic lines in the U.S. and Canada as well as some very questionable and rarely skied lines that somehow made it into the book. I’ve been posting about the lines on my blog, noahhowell.com if you like to catch up on past exploits. Scarpa asked for an update on how the project is going and what the plans for the upcoming winter are, so here we go!

I’ve been starting with the closest and “easiest” lines and being based out of SLC, UT I’m in a pretty good central location for most of the classics in the west. Conditions play such a huge part in being able to pull these off, luckily it was real snowy one last winter and most of the lines were “in”. I started off trying to finish up in the lower 48 states, I only had 7 remaining, one of which is Split Couloir in the Sierra Mountains. My buddy Louis Arevelo and I drove down for a quick hit. Unfortunately, after the 5 mile approach we found the ice pillar that connects the upper couloir to the lower chute was missing! We attempted to climb the rock, but it was too polished and we turned around. Next, we tried to climb a sister chute to access the top of the Split Couloir, but we were too late in the day and wet avalanches were flushing down the line, so we bailed and will wait for another year.

Better success was found on Castle Peak in the White Cloud Wilderness of Idaho. Ben Peters and I utilized snowmobiles to get near the wilderness boundary where we camped out and then next day climbed and skied the very remote and infrequently visited south facing line. We found decent snow in a fantastic 3,000 foot chute and were able to check the box on that one without incident.

The infamous Landry Line on Pyramid Peak in Colorado was getting some attention and thanks to the posting and boasting on Instagram we knew it was good to go. Local Aspenite Adam Moszynski and Adam Clark teamed up for this iconic steep skiing line after it received some new snow. We ended up getting on it a few days after the storm and were amazed to see at least ten tracks on it! Pretty crazy to see that on a line that went for decades without being repeated. The turns were steep and exposed, but the snow was good and of the lines in the book, this was the steepest and most unnerving so far.

I was looking closely at the Chugach Range in Alaska but the weather didn’t line up with my timing and I wasn’t able to make it up north to attempt the three lines in “The 50”.

Timing did line up perfectly for a trip out to the state of Washington where 4 of the 50 reside. We hoped to ski them all in a week. We started big and worked our way from tallest to the smallest. The mighty Mount Rainer was first, where Adam Clark and local Drew Tabke and I skied the Fuhrer Finger. We packed lightly and went up to spend the night at Camp Muir, early the next morning we ascended the Ingraham Headwall and summited on a beautiful clear day. It’s hard to get good conditions throughout on a 10,000 foot line and we didn’t, but the top was wind buffed pow, the middle was mushy mank and the lower was perfect corn, so all in all I would give it 4 out of 5 stars.

We took a day off to dry out gear and shuttle cars for a go at the Watson Traverse which start on Mount Baker and traverses the north cascades ending at the Mount Baker ski area. Another perfect day for Adam Clark and I while we traversed completely new terrain to us. We didn’t move fast, but we nailed the route finding and enjoyed some great skiing and some horrible skiing over the 17 miles. Our feet were a bit worked and we took another rest day to do more laundry and refresh.

Weather was warming up and the mountains were deteriorating, but we set out deep into the North Cascades for the remote El Dorado. The long steep approach could be done in a day, but we opted to camp and enjoy ourselves. With the great crew of Adam Clark, Drew Tabke and Kameron Decker Harris it would be hard to not enjoy this outing. An early start got us up onto the plateau for sunrise and we strolled the knife edge summit ridge and the corn turns that followed. Drew and I checked out and skied a neighboring couloir as well, just to spice things up before we all descended slop back to the dry trail. The temperatures shot up and without a good re-freeze overnight we opted not to attempt Mount Shuksun, but three out of four mega classics in less than a week wasn’t bad.

A month later I went up to Alaska to try and ski the Messner Couloir on Denali. Before we could do that I had committed to attempt a line on Mount Foraker. We managed to pull off the second descent of the 11,000 foot Archangel Ridge on Foraker in primo conditions and without a hitch. Then we pushed hard overnight from 7K to 14K on Denali with 80lb packs and I developed a cold, which turned to HAPE and I had to descend and exit the mountains. That put an end to the ski season for me in 2019. The season was not as productive as I had hoped, but I’m greedy that way. I wrapped up with 30 of the classics skied, a nice round number.

For the upcoming winter I hope to finish up the remaining two lines in the lower 48 states, Split Mountain and Mount Shuksun. Then head north to Canada in late winter/early spring for a few weeks on a chuting spree to try to ski as many of the lines as are in condition. I’ll wrap up the season with a trip to Alaska with a return to Denali, or perhaps venture off to the Wrangell’s to check out Mount St Elias and University Peak.

Attempting to ski the “50 Classics” has been the most fun and rewarding and challenging project I’ve chosen into and I’m just getting started really, with most of the most difficult peaks to come.