Conical Peak SE Face, Crazy Mountains, MT

This one's a little belated, but I finally got a couple days over President's Day weekend to ski a mountain I've been eyeing for a while. The Crazies are an anomaly out in the plains--it's a relatively small range that juts 6,000'+ out of a basin feature, with rolling plains on all sides. They are steep, loose, a pain in the ass to get into, and totally spectacular. Definitely one of the under-utilized areas of the state, partly due to access issues, and partly because they just aren't close to anything. I went out on this trip intending to ski the E/NE face of Iddings Peak, but a sketchy snow pit on the way (3 Q1 shears in the first 18") turned me up the main fork of Big Timber Creek to a mountain I had eyed, but never climbed.

I started off a bit late with a big 'ol pile of gear, about 1.5 miles from the trailhead. Surprisingly, there was consistent snow, and I didn't have to walk anything!

The snow quickly got deeper as I moved up, which made bridge crossings a little goofy.

After being turned around on my way to Blue Lake, I ended up at Lower Twin Lake. Here you can see an unnamed peak with several really fun couloirs running on various aspects, but due to the weird snowpit on a NE aspect, I opted for some corn instead.

I set up camp, then took off up Conical!

Summit pano with the Southern end of the Crazies in the foreground, and the Absarokas in the background. I spent quite a while up here soaking in the sunset, since I had an unobstructed view from a point 6,000' above the surrounding valleys. Beautiful!