LOW-ELEVATION EXTREME SKIING
There’s no other way to describe Mount Brown’s north face than being “three-dimensional”. Hundreds of couloirs, frozen waterfalls, and rock spires scatter the face, adding a labyrinth of complexity to any ascents, or in this case descents, of the face. I cannot understate how serious the overhead hazard on this face is. Ice climbing ascents of the face are rarely done after November, and the location has had its fair share of close-calls and climbing-related avalanche incidents. Stable avalanche conditions are the bare minimum needed on this line—you need to have the right weather and snow quality, too. This is one of the last places I’d want to be if it started snowing or if the winds picked up!
The imposing dark side of Mount Brown is filled with nearly limitless options for the daring descensionist. It’s not necessarily aesthetic, but it’s scrappy, confusing, and fun as hell. You’re looking at roughly a mile of vertical drop in an even shorter distance. Photo: Seth Anderson Photography
This face is something I’ve dreamed of finding a top-down ski descent on, but a lot needed to line up for it to make sense. Go too early in the season and you’ll encounter less snow, much more water ice, and a variable snowpack. Go too late in the season, and you’ll be in one of Glacier Park’s biggest low-elevation gunbarrels, producing wet snow avalanches that regularly rip to the valley floor.
With some remarkable early season storms in November, the snow was sticking unusually well to Glacier’s steep rock faces by January. There was snow coverage down to the valley floors, too. Combined with a reasonable weather forecast and a stable snowpack, the idea of skiing this face was beginning to become a little more real.
I half-jokingly asked ice climber and photographer Seth Anderson how well he knew the face, to which he replied: “Like the back of my hand.” And just like that, I had a friend willing to check it out, too.
I’d been using some topo maps and summer photos and was 99% sure we had a clean line down the face, sneaking in around 7,500 feet, with over 4,000 feet of fall-line skiing to the valley floor. Still, I was really unsure of what we’d encounter, and insisted we each bring a 60m rope, ice screws, and pitons—I wanted to be prepared for anything.
Seth Anderson making his way up Mount Brown before sunrise.
We arrived at the top of the line around sunrise, and although the PWL had recently been dropped from the forecast we dug a pit profile near the top of the line to be sure of our commitment. We found a very deep, soft, right-side-up snowpack, with no wind effect. Light fog was drifting in and out, but we banked on it burning off as the sun got warmer. I dropped in first, cautiously knowing I was above huge exposure, even if I couldn't see it below.
Approaching the first crux. Seth and I were amazed that the snow was sticking to the slope below us!
Seth and I leapfrogged each other down the top 1,000 feet of skiing, occasionally pulling out at safe spots and giving the clear on the radio. We finally began to reach the precipice above the main gully. I was ready to pull out the rope, but Seth spotted a sidestep we could take to skip this cliff band. The snow was chalky and slightly softer than styrofoam, giving an incredible platform for hop turns and billy-goating. We made our way through the first crux and got to the second, tougher one. A tricky entrance to a 15 foot drop above some exposure had me feeling like I was at Bridger Bowl. We opted to ski it carefully, using trees as “veggie belays” to lower ourselves, ski edges precariously perched on rocks and branches. It’s more akin to downclimbing than it is to skiing, but Bridger Bowl taught us MSU students a thing or two about the noble art of the veggie belay. After a brief interruption of me faffing around, getting a ski wedged in some rocks, and having to tie into a tree branch in order to take weight off the ski, some traversing led us to where the upper forks merged into the main gully.
Seth hanging out in an icy alcove below the tricky section.
Seth finding some good snow in the main gully.
We weaved our way down the main gully, squeaking our way past every ice step. A few thousand feet of good skiing gave way to alder-slapping “skiing”. We had skis on our feet, but there wasn’t much snow. Miraculously, we kept our skis on all the way to the Going To The Sun Road, in impeccable style. Neither of us could believe we found 4,000 feet of continual skiing on the face without a rope. Seth and I were back in C Falls by early afternoon.
It’s always fun getting out with other photographers, since I almost never get to ski in front of the camera. Thinly-covered water ice steps made for some tricky navigation down low. Photo: Seth Anderson Photography
Another photo of me pinning it between ice and rock. I’m glad I brought my powder skis! It’s wild to think that there’s still nearly 3,000 feet of skiing left below.
I’ve heard that the north side of Mount Brown has seen at least two other ski descents from a different entrance than ours, requiring rappels. I think it’s cool that we found a reasonable path down and didn’t need ropes, but I was very glad we had all of the gear in case the line didn’t go clean. Personally, I think this might be the most logical line on this face, but there are nearly limitless options that are much more technical and contrived. Left Gully and Mile of Smiles would both require a ton of prep and scouting before I’d want to give either a go. I think they’d be big benchmarks for top-down Glacier Park ski mountaineering and would really push the vision for piecing together ski descents on those big climbing routes in the park. (You’d be looking for conditions that would only come together every few years, or even once a decade.)
Last Note: A big factor that contributed to this going so smoothly was the snow quality. The snow was sticking really well in the upper alpine for early in the season, and there was a lot of it. I think in most years you’d need a rope for the crux section because it's simply too steep and avalanche-prone for cold winter snow to stick.
