Coming off Longs' we felt like we had some momentum. Feeling strong, the weather was clear and sunny and the spring melt/freeze cycle was in full swing which would mean Wetterhorns' east face could be a great call.

The road to the trailhead was dry(matterhorn creek), so we camped at the truck. The next morning we were up early, or so it seemed, and skinning soon after. Just like the day before, it was hot out, even for May. We were in short sleeves almost from the car. The ski line on Wetterhorn is due east so at first light the snow sees the sun— that makes it a great spring ski when timed right, which in this case is pretty early. In retrospect, arriving at the base of the 1000 ft. east face around 8:30 could only be considered late. We acknowledged the late hour by picking up our pace. Eventually, skins were switched for crampons and as we approached the top of the east face, moving near any heat collecting rock outcropping would result in a fall into waist deep holes of overheated rotten spring snow. Enough with the foreshadowing.

By the time we left our skis, climbed the rocky finish to the summit and returned to our skis, it was so late and so warm I'm ashamed to say what my watch read. After openly discussing the high likelihood, if not certainty of a wet slide, we decided not to choose a different way down, but to outsmart it and make some ski cuts, setting off the slide leaving us with the more solid snow underneath to ski down. Brilliant.

Two turns into executing our darwinian strategy the slope broke and took Sean for a ride. I watched in disbelief as he first rode on top of the snow until near the finish when suddenly his skis were ejected and he did a cartwheel to a stop at the bottom of the face. I then skied the bed surface, noticing a one foot crown connecting rock outcroppings like a connect-the-dots. I picked up a lost ski pole and quickly arrived to a shaken up, although physically OK Sean. We skied the easy terrain back to the truck.

On the way out, the conversation at times sounded like a post traumatic stress debrief, we both knew it might not sink in for a while. Sean insisted he was just fine though, he wanted to get right back on the horse, so we headed to Creede, to try for San Luis Peak tomorrow.

We got lucky. Several different more dramatic scenarios could have unfolded, most of them worse than what happened. The fact that we knew it would slide yet we still dropped in is a decision that I'm not too proud of but that's part of the learning process. I honestly thought we could just ski cut it. I think it's better to talk about it than not.

On the lighter side, one question remains. Does Sean count this as a ski descent? ;)