Back on (Broken) Top: High Noon and Tower Couloir

 The Lines: High Noon (650', 55° max, sustained ~50°) and Tower Couloir (900', 40° max)

The Mountain: Broken Top, 9,175', Oregon Cascades

January 24, 2025

The author wishing he hadn't forgotten his ski leashes. Photo: Zach Smith.

If you can't tell from the somewhat narrow focus of my blog posts this season, the only blog-able ski missions have been several trips to Broken Top with Zach and Axell. I'm considering renaming the blog to reflect this. Right now I'm leaning towards "Broken Top Butt Buddies", but am open to suggestions. Drop me a line. 

Zach representing for the Ravens.

After a bone-chilling ride into the wilderness boundary, the sun was quickly warming up the air quickly as we threw our skins on. It wasn't long before we were sweating, but the icy crust on the ground couldn't have cared less.  

Getting crowded on the way in, who told everyone about this place?

Priority #1: High Noon. As I've explained in previous posts, most ski lines in the Broken Top crater are named based on their position on an imaginary clock, with the summit set to, you guessed it, twelve o'clock. High Noon is a snowfield that starts about 200 feet below the summit ridge, separated by a cliff, then careens down into the crater at a consistent, steep angle. Oftentimes when I write these blog posts, I'm frustrated that I don't have any good photos of the route I'm writing about. This isn't the case here; any tourist taking a selfie at nearby Mt. Bachelor probably has a photo of High Noon perfectly framed in the middle of the crater as a souvenir. And after they take that selfie, perhaps they notice some small figures shredding the absolute nuts off it, thinking to themselves "Fuck, those guys are so cool, no doubt they are also devastatingly handsome and generous lovers." 

High Noon is the tallest snowfield seen here, near the middle of the photo. The summit of Broken Top is just to the left. 

The ice had us doing some sliding around in the Vulva (that joke is never going to get old), but soon enough we found ourselves staring right up at the line. From here, our goal looked shorter than it had from afar, but no less steep. The only hiccup in this glorious day was my ill-advised new boots + ratty socks combination, which was demolishing my heels. I slapped some mole skin on them and was ready to tear of after Zaxell. 

Gotta love that bright orange gooch strap on the new Ortovox airbag packs!

The snow was dramatically softer on the steep face, making for some secure steps. The angle increased as we gained height, passing the wide rock choke and into the upper section. Axell measured the angle at 49-50° in several spots. I was surprised at this; I hadn't heard much mention of High Noon as a particularly challenging or special descent like you hear about with, say, Pucker Up. However, I think that the angle of this line combined with aesthetic appeal certainly puts the two in the same league. 

We had been hoping to find a moat up against the rocks to make the transition less nerve-wracking, but as we neared the final rock wall, our hopes were dashed. Axell measured the angle at 55° here, although the slope is only that steep for the top 50-ish feet. Zaxell went to check out one last potential moat while I stopped to kick a platform in a small spot where the angle eased somewhat. The whole crew was a bit gripped at the prospect of a precarious transition. As soon as we started kicking in, it became clear that we'd have no problem building ourselves some platforms. After 10 minutes of stomping and chopping, I had a perch that I could just fit two skis on. Zaxell were about 30 feet above me and were sharing a platform; I guess being roommates its force of habit. 

Zach dropped in first, quickly starting to link confident turns on the soft snow. No side slipping today!

With Axell on footy duty above, I dropped in. It took me a second to work up the nerve to make a turn, but after that I was doing some real, honest-to-God skiing! It felt incredible to have such grippy snow on something so steep, and without serious slough coming down to rattle my flow. My only regret was that I had worn ultralight boots and not something that would have let me take full advantage of the incredible skiing. 

Photo: Axell Beskar.

Ax-man let er' rip next. 

After regrouping for some smiles and pole taps, we discussed the next move. We could see that the weak winter sun was struggling to soften anything that wasn't steep and pointed straight at it, so it made sense to choose something southwest facing given that it was the after-Noon. 

Tower Couloir seemed to fit the bill. We skied down to the moraine near its base and took a long break, then began booting up. Tower starts fairly mellow, has a section of ~40° skiing, then becomes mellow again as it twists through the upper rock towers.

Tower ain't the gnarliest, but I was looking for a nice digestif to help High Noon settle instead of a full second course. Mostly, I soaked in the views as we climbed.

Almost there. Photo: Zach Smith

The top, right along the crater rim, afforded us the luxury of yet another slow transition with almost no wind. On a day like this, why rush to leave?

Zach boosting into Tower. 

The snow wasn't as soft as it was for our first lap, but I couldn't complain. I passed videographer Axell and found Zach at the bottom. Just then, I heard Axell yell and saw him sliding down the hill with his ski gaining speed in front of him. Zach moved first and made a line straight for the ski. He barely missed it but I was able to make a slide for it, trapping it between my butt and the snow. For a brief second I was wondered what had made Axell crash on the relatively mellow slope, until I noticed that the toe piece of the ski was missing! 

With the broken ski secure on Zach's pack, Axell continued downhill with us, demonstrating his prowess on one ski. He said that back when he was a lifty, he would use just one ski on his first run down to his lift every day. The practice payed off! We made it most of the way back to the sleds before throwing the skins back on. Axell Voile strapped his toe piece to the ski, which worked super well enough for our purposes. We were more glad than ever to have the machines to get us back to the Sno-Park. 

June-uary is almost gone; February and a tasty weekend storm are on the horizon. I look forward to these high-pressure days abouve treeline whenever the snow and wind are nuking and I'm stuck below the trees. That being said, I'm ready for some pow! The circus on the Cascade Lakes Highway has turned me off chasing powder there at the moment, and I'm ready to check out some new zones. In other words, time to bring the traffic to someone else's backyard...