We left the Sunshine base area around 9:00 am and skied up the hard packed Healy pass trail that had seen a lot of travel to the meadows where we enjoyed the nice sun. In the meadows we took off left from the Healy pass trail and broke a safe line to the Ramparts. We did pass evidence of the failure of weaknesses in the snow pack.
Avalanche debris from a thin wind loaded area?
Once we gained the ridge we had a pleasant windless lunch in the sun.
Arnold, Evan, Carl, Rainer and Philip enjoying a windless lunch on the Monarch Ramparts
Then it was off a long the Ramparts with wonderful sunny views
View NW from Monarch Ramparts (Mount Ball? peaking out behind Pharoah peaks?)
Hopefully my companions will not object to the little tease in this photo caption.
Arnold, Evan and Carl .... struggling to identify the high peak right centre of photo? (just kidding!)
As usual much of the Ramparts were hard packed and wind blasted but a pocket of wind sifted sugar snow trapped by some small trees also trapped me .....
Coordinator accidentally suddenly "digs" a pit! (thanks for the photo Evan!)
I got "trapped" again lower down in a hole in the rocky terrain descending towards Eohippus. Fortunately I recovered and, like my competent companions, enjoyed a few turns off the Ramparts. Then across the lumpy terrain searching for the Healy drainage. Carl and Rainer helped out with their phone apps and we successfully found a "not bad" route to the Healy - SImpson junction. I have done this trip a few times and some times the line is better than others .... looking at the route on Carl's phone after the fact it was n't too bad with just one kink ... we did it without skins .... wonder if it would be worth putting skins on and going bushwhacking over one of the knolls? Once in the drainage some fun supportive snow, in spots, took us to the Healy - Simpson pass junction around 4:30 pm. From there, as I had been advised by Jack (thanks Jack!) the hard and fast Healy Luge run took us around 45 minutes to Sunshine. Thanks Philip, Arnold, Carl, Evan and Rainer for joining me, John .... not a trip for turns but really nice views on a sunny, warmish and windless day that I enjoyed.
