Hillman's & Right Gully Trip Report

An extraordinary day out for us. tMail is now addicted to steep snow and spring-like conditions. The route was a Hillman's Highway ascent with an off-trail traverse to the summit (hugging to top of Left Gully, Tuckerman's ravine, and then ascending across the south-west snowfields of the summit cone. The descent was via a similar route but directly down to Tuckerman Ravine (to where the Alpine Garden Trail meets the Tuckerman Ravine Trail. We stuck to the top of the ravine and headed down Right Gully for the final descent into the bowl.

Mutha's Trip Report (Pics HERE, Video HERE):

• A Good Start, Part I: the slog up to the Cabin featured me trying to keep up with tMail. I made things worse by going on and on about my bowels. Great story, if you like to talk about intestines.
• A Good Start, Part II: it was so warm up to the Cabin that I stripped to my light poly t-shirt, no hat, and thin gloves just for comfort.
  
• Visibility was so low when we started out that I couldn't find Dodge's Drop. It Photo Credit: tMail
  didn't matter though, because Hillman's was a great way to get our confidence up. Surface conditions were primo.
• Near Death, Part I: We began to catch up with three skiers ascending for a run back down. We were about 2/3 the way to the ridge when the closest skier (still in snowshoes) lost traction and rocketed down toward us. We were about 25ft from his glide-path (to climber's right) and just watched him shoot past - he lost both poles, one snowshoe, and kept feet-first (more or less) until he lost it and began tumbling until he ground to a halt. He wasn't injured, gave a meek thumb's up. It was awesome - especially when we could hear him suddenly accelerate as he lost friction to the Gortex Gods.
  
• Near Death, Part II: That left two others, who put on their skis and got ready for the trip down. One, clearly experienced, began instructing the other on how to do fast jump-turns: "When you get to the side, do this ... [jumps gracefully]... then just - AHHHHHH!...". Down goes the 'expert', shooting past us, losing a ski and poles and rocketing down the hill head-first to join his buddy. Also no injuries. Totally awesome.
  
• Near Death, Part III: One guy left. The new guy. He shouts out "Wait a minute, I don't know what I'm doing!". He then proceeds to ski down the hill, a little stiffly, but totally without incident to help his buddies pick themselves back up. Good for him.
• At the top of Hillman's, the skies cleared and we had a snack in the shelter of an outcrop. We watched Froth ascend a great-looking ridge on climber's right of Left Gully - impressed by his daring. Turns out he couldn't get over the substantial cornice at the top and in the low visibility chose a treacherous route. His evaluation: "I was pretty scared".
• The Trek Up The Summit: The cloud layer blew off and the off-trail trek along the top of the ravine was impressive. Many hikers lined the route up to the summit, looking like a train of ants from our perspective. We went straight up the snowfields of the summit cone to avoid the crowds and the rocks. Very excellent choice, landing right in the middle of the lower parking lot.
• The summit was crawling with hikers. "This place is crawling with bugs!".
• The descent was also off-trail, featuring a butt-slide down to the top of Tuckerman Ravine. We banged along the ravine until we found the top of right gully. It looked pretty sketchy, but I started down face-to-the-hill and tmail followed ass-to-the-hill. After about 25ft or so we did a practice self-arrest and found the conditions ultra-slow and easy. We moved out to the center of the gully and glissaded all the way into the bowl. It was so easy it was kind of a let-down.
• The One Forgetting Piece of Gear That Mattered: Sun-screen.
• The One Remembered Piece of Gear That Mattered: Julbo glacier glasses.

tMail's Trip Report (Pics HERE):

1. Not telling Mutha the goal was to make it to the cabin in under 1 hour...we did it in 1 hour 4 minutes.
2. Part of a snow ranger uniform is to have a beard that has been growing since last November.
3. Hear the snow ranger tell MZ that it..."sounds like you know more than we do" hint to snow ranger he does.
4. Working our way up to the start of Hillmans and not being able to see it.
5. I was felt fully confident on Hillmans 99.9% of that was probably do to Bonney Pass.
6. Seeing snowboarder slide all the way down Hillmans and all his equipment fall off him...I was waiting for a pair of goggles to come my way.
7. Seeing his buddy slide all the way down Hillmans and all his equipments fall off him...I was waiting for a pair of goggles to come my way.
8. Seeing the third amigo say he is the least experience...thinking to myself this is going to be awesome then listening to him scream all the way down Hillmans and not fall.
9. Hillmans was bomb proof...we had nice kick steps and were able to plank our ice ax perfectly.
10. Getting up to Hillmans and the heavens open
11. Staying on snow pack all the way to summit.
12. Glissade down south west snowfield
13. Saying to MZ..."Fuck it were going down Right Gully"
14. Seeing the 4 roped up guys thinking that nobody was doing a belay and they could have crumbled like dominos.
15. I have more desire to do Left Gully because Froth looked like he saw a ghost.
16. Hearing about Adrian shit his pants and not be able to ski down Right Gully so he went into fetal position on the alphine garden trail...never seen again...screw'em