Skate the Sawtooths
The days leading up to the trip weren’t exactly showing promise and it wasn’t like the Sawtooths got dumped on while we were there, but somehow we got lucky. Lets back up a bit first. This fall I sent out a bunch of emails to people who I thought might be into a backcountry powderskate trip outside of Stanley Idaho in the Sawtooth National Forest. We worked the calender around a bit until we found a weekend that fit everyone’s schedule then set the date, February 10-13. With the prediction of la nina it seemed we couldn’t go wrong and with the strong start of winter it felt like we were in the money. While many parts of the west were having great winters though, the central Idaho area wasn’t. There were reports of boiler plate slabs and depressed skies all over the sun valley/stanley area and it seemed like the trip might be a bust. I really had zero expectations and would have postponed if any of the original invitees would have pulled out.
Thankfully no one did and the van was loaded and departed from Sandpoint with Eric, Cole, Jordan and Katie.
Its about a 9 Hrs drive from my place so Thursday was dedicated to the highway. We had people coming from Logan Ut, Boise Id, southern California and Hood River for a total of ten powderskater/surfers and one telemarker.
Here’s a shot of the available quivers for the weekend. With the questionable snow people bought all their options.
Early Friday morning we got the sleds warmed up and a short recon from the cabin, which is located on Fisher Creek. I had the topos for the area and had explored in the summer but had no idea what it had to offer with respect to powderskating. There had been a pretty big fire about 3 summers ago so my hope was that the tree riding or better yet, snag riding would be fun.
A short sled ride from the cabin put us in a great location for exploring.
The snow was looking soft and the higher we got the better it got.
After the first few runs our below average expectations evaporated. The snow was great and we had three days to do as much damage as we could.
On our last day we spent the first part of the morning riding each others’ boards on this really fun cornice. In the background you can see the bowls that we spent most of our time in.
Jeff built a jump with no run in right off the bat, then had people fling him at it. He stuck it and ripped turns to the bottom.
Jeremy was next with a shovit.
There were plenty of boards to choose from.
We rode hard the whole trip and it was amazing. The sun wasn’t even supposed to be shining on Sunday so all of it felt like a gift.
It was hard to take but the weekend had to come to an end sometime.
We had the cameras rolling quite a bit, and Jeremy is a pro so I expect to see some great action photos from this trip. Lets just say a certain picture triggered remotely by the rider (Jeremy) is most definitely a cover shot and will blow some minds.
I did some amateur video editing of the weekend for you all to enjoy. Its a download and plays on quicktime. Should only take a few minutes to load, just hit the red skate the sawtooths link here > Skate the Sawtooths
