Adam Mckenney and I arrived at the Icicle Rd and Mountaineer Creek junction at 6:45am. Just as we were packing up Icicle Creek local Danny Z slides up on his super sled on his way to work and gives us some beta. He says everything is good and there is a skin track up Cannon's west face out of the Stuart Lake Trail head. This is exciting news for us, we don't have to break trail! We zip up to the top of the road with a sled assist. 2 hours and 57 minutes from the trail head we are standing 4500 vertical feet higher and crest the ridge. Special thanks to Erik Svega for putting the skin track in a few days prior.
We drop about 400 vertical ft to arrive in the Cooney lake basin and tour over to the main head wall. We place skis on our backs and kick steps up to the true summit. From the ridge to the summit took us about 1 hour and 45 minutes. The main head-wall is around 1000ft high and approximately 40 degrees steep. Once on top we enjoyed a nice view of dense fog and low clouds at an elevation of close to 8600ft. After a short break and some recon photos we locked boots and started our decent.
Adam finds a line through the first rock band. We followed a direct line from the top. You can traverse further down the ridge for a cleaner entrance.
Almost into the open!
Yes, yes...yes it's powder forever!
Very high alpine feel to this run.
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