Mahana Ridge

Posted on 15 March 2010

Dave

The deathmarch call gathered Greg, Daan, Scott, Chris and I at the Brewing Market early Saturday morning. It was a good sized group for this sort of thing.

We started hiking/skinning around 8, and just kept going. I had some issues with the metal tech insert/toe piece on my boot being gouged at just the right spot where if I tilted my boot at all it would eject it, so I was consequently hiking alongside the rest of the crew. It wasn’t bad at all though, as we had a well-packed trail to work with, and a downright gorgeous day.

Our intent was a direct ascent up the ridge, but we cut just a little far north and ended up having to switchback up a steep slope to gain the mellow ascent. This set us back some, so by the time we broke treeline and saw the remainder of our ascent, it looked slim that we’d have enough time for a summit bid.

It was decided to at least go for the ridge, and see how things went. Upon topping out of the snow, we opted to try the hike. We gained the rocky shelf and got another view of the final ascent to the peak. Unfortunately it was too late in the day, and we decided that the mile+ ascent would cost us an hour at least to get there and back. There was a couloir off the ridge that looked like an amazing spring descent, with a 48 degree entry! There was a substantial crack throughout the rollover leading into it- could very well have been a re-filled crown:

I snapped a few beta shots of Isolation and we returned to the skis.

From there it was an excellent descent with plenty of vert, variable snow and terrain- as Wild Basin usually is.