One of my goals this winter is to explore new areas in my park. Lapping powder is fun, but with increased fitness it can tend to be become repetitive. I set out today to explore an area technically outside of my park as it's south of the 49th.

Herbst Glacier looked promising on the topo maps - it's a north east aspect off of Mt. Custer. It's a bit of a walk but that's why it's likely not seen tracks before. I left the vehicle at 9 and recycled the up from yesterday before dropping down into Boundary Creek. I started a traverse near about 3/4 of the way to the bottom rather than following it right down like we did last year for the Galloway Bowl. I soon ran out of traverse capability and switched to skins. I followed the contour around and soon arrived at the meadow beneath Grizzly Pass.

I trended to the climber's left and followed the large timber up and past a large horizontal cliff band. I soon found a natural ramp that permitted me to get past the next cliff band. It steepened up quite a bit and required numerous switchbacks, but the new storm snow was bonding quite nicely up here on this aspect. I eventually gained a ridge that gave me my first good look at the face in question. As is often the case, the face gets less and less steep looking the closer you get. There were some moraine looking features and a couple of recent loose snow avalanches were noted.

I followed the prominent rib up towards the base of the next cliff bands. I soon spied a couloir that dropped from the ridge. It looked to be the only line up to the visible ridge. There were some lines that would require some navigation through various cliff bands, but they seemed to terminate up high with impassible terrain. I departed the rib and headed towards the middle of the slope with plans for a closer look at the couloir. I put switchbacks into the loose snow bed surface and found the snow to be very soft. As I got closer, I could see a couple of thin rock bands hiding under the surface of the couloir and elected to stop the climb for today. It was almost completely blue and eerily calm. It's not often that my park (or the one south of the 49th) isn't windy, but this was the second straight day. With some more snow and a partner, I believe this couloir will see tracks this year.

I enjoyed terrific powder turns down the moraine before I descended down the steep ramp, hung a left and headed towards a gap in the lowest cliff band then down to the meadow. I was still on the wrong side of the knob and needed to gain the ridge to get home. There's some nice open spaces on this side of Summit Ridge and I slowly but surely busted in the required up. Near the top I was starting to feel it. I was just shy of 5,000 feet and about 70% of that was trail breaking. I opted for another lap and once again enjoyed more great powder turns down to the meadow. It seems the storm snow has consolidated a bit as I never felt a crust on this lap either. Once switched over and pointed back up hill, I thoroughly enjoyed the second climb thanks to my efforts on the first climb.

On top of Summit Ridge, I crossed back into my park and country, making sure to declare the powder turns I'd gotten while out of the country. I headed to the Scimitar and had a blast on the way down until I hit the apron above the peninsula. It had acquired a few death cookies, but they were confined to a fairly short band of elevation. Once through them it was all blower back down to the lake. One final switchover and then the long walk back to the vehicle. Total up today 6,180 and distance covered was 12.8 miles.