Pucker Up!
The Line: Pucker Up , 1,100', 45+° max The Mountain: Broken Top , 9,175', Oregon Cascades November 30, 2024 Pucker Up is in purple, approach is in blue. Image created in CalTopo. Long time readers of the blog (hi Dad!) may remember Zach and my ill-fated overnighter into Broken Top in December of 2022 . It was cut short when one of my skis broke during the first day, which stopped us from achieving the main goal of the trip, which was to ski Pucker Up. Although I hate to admit it, part of me was glad to have this line taken off the table. Frankly, it scared the hell out of me, and given my lack of experience with steep skiing at the time, I was perhaps right to be scared. In the time since then, even as I have racked up experience skiing lines of similar difficulty , Pucker Up didn't get any less foreboding in my mind. Zach, Axell and I decided to take advantage of the long high-pressure window, which came after some incredible November snowfall, to make an early-season ru...
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