Group members: Larry Wallace and Dave Slavensky
Larry Wallace and I (Dave Slavensky) decided to make a climb to Broken Top. I was definitely in due to the fact that Larry was able to scrounge up a snowmobile to get us in close to the mountain.
We left town around 7:30 and parked at Dutchman's flat. We were the only car in the lot and the weather looked promising. We geared up, strapped packs and skis onto the one man snowmobile and hit the trail - low riding from the extra weight.
We had adventures along the way - the whoops on the trail were pretty rough. Later when negotiating a side hill, Larry rolled the sled almost breaking Larry's skis as the full weight of the sled was put on them. But, well made skis are tougher than you think and they held up (K2 Mt Baker's).
We finally made it around Moon Mountain where we stashed the sled, marked our waypoint and headed to the mountain. We had a downhill right away and still had our skins on and our heels free - so the skiing was a bit tricky. Someone fell, but we will never tell who... We made our way into the lower bowl, stopping to try and pick a line up. The clouds kept a light veil over the mountain tip, so we had to go by instinct and trust we were on the right line.
Once into the upper crater, we stashed the skis at the base of the South Face Gully, donned crampons and ice axes and made our way up the South Face (climber's right). The clouds continued to hide the mountain most of the time, snowing lightly other times and once in awhile clearing so we could see. We got to the top of the Gully, but below where the real climbing beings. The time was around 2:00, visibility was questionable, and Larry's rope was only 30 meters... so we decided to skip the final push to the summit and we down climbed to our skis - living to fight another day.
We packed up and started down on our skis. The snow was PERFECT and we had some wonderful turns with the bowl completely to ourselves. It was great to hear each other whooping and hollering as we skied down. This was the real highlight of the trip.
We got back to the snowmobile and Larry decided to be towed rather than ride. This worked great until Dave decided to take a wrong turn and tow Larry an extra 6 miles the long way around Tumalo Mountain - over woops the whole way. When it was all over, Larry was looking for the vicodin and a massage therapist.
We made it back to Bend for a big burger and beer at Cascade Lakes Brewery. The following morning, I looked at the mountain and could see where we turned around. It made me determined that we will get the summit on our next attempt! Soon! Who wants to join us?
