Four Exum Guides Team
for First Ski Descent
of Mount Moran's CMC Route
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Exum guides chalked up another pioneering ski descent in the Tetons this past week. Previously considered only as a rock climb, the CMC Route caught Hans Johnstone's eye as a ski route in the late 1990s. The CMC Route was first climbed in 1941 by Paul Petzoldt and Chicago Mountaineering Club members Joseph Hawkes, Earl Clark, and Harold Plumley. Since then, the generally safe and moderate route has become a classic standard route to the summit of Mount Moran.

The CMC Route begins at the shores of Leigh Lake and continues up steep slopes for some 4,500 feet to the top of the Drizzlepus. Two long rappels from the Drizzlepus lead to a notch below the southeast ridge of Mount Moran. The standard climbing route then traverses right onto the east face of the southeast ridge and tackles over 1,000 feet of 50- to 60-degree slabs in seven pitches of 5.4 climbing and much scrambling. It was this extremely steep portion of the CMC Route that Johnstone skied with fellow guides Doug Coombs, Bill Dyer, and Kent McBride on May 16, 2002.

The week prior, Johnstone and Dyer along with two other Exum guides, Tom Turiano and Wes Bunch, attempted the descent but found three feet of fresh powder clinging precariously to the steep face. Had temperatures stayed cold, the foursome would have continued in their attempt of the climb and descent, but the May sun quickly warmed the deep snow into dangerous wet glop. But Johnstone and Dyer would not be deterred.

Leaving Jackson at 1:00am, Johnstone, Dyer, Coombs, and McBride began canoeing across String and Leigh Lakes at 2:00am and began their ascent of the mountain shortly before 4:00am. Instead of following the standard CMC Route over the Drizzlepus, the team climbed the spectacular Falling Ice Glacier, which provides a more natural skiing exit from the upper CMC face.

During their ascent of the upper face, they found the snow pack that coated the steep rock slabs of the face fortuitously supportable and they made fast time to the summit. There, they coincidentally met Bunch and Turiano who were guiding a ski descent of the famous Skillet Glacier, and a merry reunion was had by all.

After well wishes, the foursome began their descent by picking their way down extremely steep chutes between rock outcrops. At the brink of a huge cliff, they traversed skiers' left into a steep and narrow couloir immediately south of Mount Moran's great protruding black dike. Before that couloir ends abruptly at a colossal precipice, they traversed back right onto the face via a very steep and exposed narrow snow-covered ledge. A short ramp led them to the main slabby portion of the face, which they skied continuously through a couple of narrow sections reaching 55 degrees in steepness.

At the brink of another massive cliff, they traversed skiers' right to the southeast ridge of Moran and made two short rappels over rock outcrops near Unsoeld's Needle. The extreme portion of the descent then concluded with several hundred feet of very steep skiing in rotten snow to the Falling Ice Glacier. Mellow turns on the glacier brought them to the 200-foot serac, which they passed on the skiers' left. Below the serac, they enjoyed 3,500 vertical feet of perfect corn snow on 30 degree slopes to Leigh Lake.