I took the last three days off. A holiday from a holiday? Things pile up in your absence and it takes a while to get caught back up. I was worried when I saw the weather station reporting plus 3 Celsius yesterday as there's been no new snow lately. I came out late last night with the plan to get an early start... although it was 9AM before I started the cross country snowboard. I had plans for 3-4 laps off of Moose Peak since the up was already in and it was lightly tracked thanks to a smaller than normal day on Monday.

I became worried that it'd been poached during my hiatus when I saw tracks exiting from where the up starts to climb again from the bench that is Summit Saddle. Why they were exiting there was a mystery, but the only way to solve it was to keep climbing. I soon stumbled across what I think was a pit dug by the forecasters here in the park. It was just short of the point where you cross the Moose Chute. Thankfully they stayed off the up on their descent, but it looked like they skied over to Summit Lake after? Dunno. Just glad to see they left me the goods!

Despite warm temperatures and largely sunny skies the past 3 days, things stood up well. The first lap I enjoyed turns in the treed triangle above the cliff band before picking my way through the cliffs and down into the chute that is just beside Zander's Zip. It's quite v shaped - much like the Moose Chute - so it's probably a two to three person maximum as well except on the deepest of days. It's a new one for me and I've coined it Zipper Left.

On the second climb just after refueling at the food cache, I heard something snap. Things have been breaking quite a bit lately. I just had my pack repaired by an "industrial seamstress" the other day. This time it was the climbing bar on the left ski. So much for 3-4 laps? I wasn't far from the flatter summer trail section of the up where I normally put the bars down anyway, but there are sections of the climb where not having the bar sucked. I tried lopsided and didn't enjoy it. I also tried stretching it out with no bars on either foot and didn't like that it either. I probably could have toughed it out for my 3-4 laps, but with a planned camping mission this weekend, I didn't really want to strain or pull a muscle, so I went slow and rested quite a bit in the steep sections.

I soon found myself at the point where Tyler, the Moose and I dropped on the first lap Monday. I opted to avoid the very steep section above here and drop towards the Piggot Chute. I figured I might as well get the other remaining chutes on this face. One which Y's into Piggot proper, and then the adjoining one lower down. The adjoining one is right when Piggot opens up, so it's hard to force yourself over. It's actually a very thin band of trees separating them and it looks like the Moose veered over into the lower section on Monday. Named them The Piggot Y and Piggot Left since it's pretty much all the same chute anyway....

Down at the bottom, the watch was showing just over 4,000 feet and 1PM. I didn't feel like climbing the whole thing again, but it was way too early for a departure. I climbed back up to the cache, loaded up the pack and told myself I would point it downhill when the watch said 5,000 feet. It soon did and I found some good turns in the trees from a spot most people probably wouldn't pick to drop from just shy of the saddle. Total up today was 5,100 feet thanks to the extra bit of vertical you pick up on the cross country snowboard to the parking lot.