The Most Villainous, Breakneck Route, chapter 12: Monroe Brook

Directions:
From the hut, stay on the high traverse, west-southwest, for two thousand feet to the first of three, maybe four variations of the drainage headwall. It’s steep in there and shaded most of the day. To avoid the headwall, make the same traverse from the hut, but for only a thousand feet or so down to about the 4750’ elevation to where you can veer onto an easy, hundred-foot wide snowfield. The snowfield eventually funnels into a narrow Monroe Brook tributary, usually best avoided. Ski the snowfield for about five hundred feet and look for a narrower, snow covered lane on skier’s left. It runs back southwesterly and after twenty to thirty short turns, you’ll come into some chutes that funnel into the main gully about midstream.

Counting the headwall variations and all the little feeder chutes and gullies, the upper watershed of Monroe Brook easily offers a half-dozen or more runs, each with six to eight hundred feet of vertical. I’ve gotten sucked into one these tree alleys, preoccupied with the fabulous skiing and my camera, never noticing the chute closing out on me.

Today there is not much snow on the traverse, so we’re in and out of the skis, hobbled by sub alpine shrubberies and boulders. Without snow, the landscape offers no sure path to where we might drop into the skiing. The rough going has spread us out over a few hundred feet and it’s a silent procession with me in the lead. It isn’t exactly the blind leading the blind. Phil and Rick clearly see the growing uncertainty of the outcome.

We are all walking in alpine touring boots that have rigid soles. With my skis off for the umpteenth time I move with all the flexibility of an Oz Tin Man.  It is foot to foot work, ski poles stabilizing each move from one rock to another. Sometimes a rock underfoot will move, pitching me forward into an uncontrolled, double-time tap dance. I rest on a tussock of sedge, leaning on my poles, and look for a way off this traverse. Sipping water, finishing off the last bite of a Cliff Bar, we're still too high to see the upper two thirds of the run we know is somewhere below us

Moving again, we can finally see beyond the roll-over of the headwall to the gully’s bottom. We're close to a way in. Our alignment is pretty good to start down, but we have no idea how much farther it is to the snow. What we see in the lower gully, fifteen-hundred feet below, is unsettling. There are indistinct, dark shapes interrupting the run-out. They’re either open pools in the raging brook or large patches of vegetation; maybe both. We were hoping the lower drainage would be full of snow, despite the early season warm weather. This is disappointing. I try to lighten the burden of responsibility for our predicament.

“Well fellas, what do you think? Could be open water down there.”
 Rick is a ways back and stops in his tracks at this spoken indecision.

“Hmm. Not worth it. We all have families.”  Phil mutters from nearby.

The impact of the loss of a family member as a parent is lost on none of us. It raises the stakes in any threatening situation. We’re all parents, and make choices every day honoring that responsibility. Three old men out for a day of fun on the mountain and one of us winding up hurt can only be considered an utterly stupid and selfish act. I had to take full responsibility for having nearly drowned in a windsurfing accident off Cape Hatteras years ago while my two and four-year old played on the beach. I can attest that in such a situation, along with the vivid awareness of one’s mortality, comes a profound emotion of regret. But today, my only regret will be my wife’s unspoken wrath if I'm late getting home. I have to get out the boiled dinner I’ve planned, mostly to cook the cabbage. Anne hates cabbage. Worse than that, hates cooking cabbage for me while I’m out skiing.

Phil has had his say, Rick has almost turned around already, and I’m already scolding myself for not packing a head torch. We are all tired and sore and lack the positive outlook to safely manage the bad stuff that might come our way from here on. For the second time today, we reverse direction and start a traverse back to the familiar Ammonoosuck Ravine trail and the trip out.
chapter 13: The Most Villainous, Breakneck Route