Mid - April, the time of year when high alpine objective start to open up. The Skillet on Mount Moran in Teton National Park has been on my list for sometime and this year seemed like the time when my experience and conditions had lined up. Plans were in place and we had our weather window, however four days before departing for Jackson a wind storm slammed into the Teton’s and shot up the danger of the avalanche conditions, the trip was put on pause. However the day before the trip conditions had seemingly healed, with few chances to make the trip up and a seemingly possible weather window the trip was back on. The next morning I hit the road from Denver to meet my partners in Jackson. Two hours into the drive while cresting the final hill in Laramie I hear a violent bang and ensuring black smoke tailing my car. The worst that could be assumed shorty came true … a totalled engine. On the loud tow truck drive to Laramie I contemplated if the world was trying to tell me to go home and throw in the towel. Never the less, my partner for the trip Simon took a detour to Laramie and scooped me on route to Jackson, saving me from a long night in Laramie’s finest motel and a tow truck ride back to Denver.
Arriving in Jackson at 930PM after managing to turn a 7 hour drive into a 12 hour travel day, we rapidly packed our bags for the next day and laid out our sleeping bags in the back of Simons van with lights out at 10:00. With a restless few hours of sleep the alarms rang shortly after finally getting a few minutes of sleep at 11:45PM. With skis on our backs, wheels were rolling by midnight as we hustled the 10KM’s down the closed road on bikes.
After four hours navigating the forest and lakes under the night sky we punched into the alpine at last. Unfortunately our celebration was short lived when we were confronted with avalanche debris containing boulders up to the size of small cars, only lit by our headlamps, the avalanche field gave off an uncomfortable eerie feeling. Never the less we pushed on with cold temperatures and hours until the sun would reach the face. We were quickly met with icy slopes and a rock hard boot pack, signs of good climbing conditions and safety but bad ski conditions. As we continued to ascend the lower flanks of the skillet we started to uncover the wind facets that we feared, we went back and forth between rock hard conditions and wallowing in 2 foot deep sugary wind facets. With each new isolated wind facet section we became more and more weary of the conditions ahead of us. Upon reaching the the top of the skillet below the start of the handle, we made the tough decision to call off our goal. We sat and enjoyed the sunrise from the middle of the line before picking our way down the lower half of the line and enjoyed a nice morning ski back across the lake. Upon arriving back at the cars at 10:00 AM and discussing our decisions, it became clear among the group that we had been spooked by how the debris looked in the dark and when unable to assess the line to a deeper extent our decisions were very isolated. The general consensus was that due to being ahead of schedule and after skiing down the lower half of the line, it would have been possible to have completed the line. However we were all in agreement that there is never a wrong decision in turning around early and the skillet will always be there for us to ski. This was one of the days that I have learned more about my decision making in the backcountry than maybe any other day, and that is something I will always greatly appreciate.
