Terminal Cancer
Two winters ago at this time (started writing this end of June), the high Sierra were still blanketed with snow and I was skiing in Yosemite. This season, not quite the case. Nearly all the snow has melted down this way, and there are just a few patches hanging around on the North facing slopes. Regardless, its been a heck of a season with plenty of fun, big lines, and trips. Its hard to believe that I really didn’t get started with the mountaineering this year until the end of March. Most of my winter was spent back in Steamboat Springs, CO for the season, and while the snow is light and makes for great tree skiing, its not very stable, and is outright horrifying if you ask me. Unfortunately, this season in the Rockies was historically unsafe, and for most of it, I watched from the sidelines dreaming of spring corn in the Western US.
First on the list for the season was one of the 50 Classic Ski Descents of North America, Terminal Cancer Couloir, and it is pretty much right along Interstate 80 in Nevada. Since the ride from Steamboat to Reno takes you along I-80, it was a no-brainer to plan for the move back out to Reno, and I was able to wrangle up some friends from Reno to meet me out there and join for the trip. I also had Rez, my Border Lab pup with me, and I knew he was up for a little skiing too! With all this on the table, it was shaping up to be a hell of a weekend. In the meantime, I just needed to wait out two days of on and off storms, which was no problem for me. The natural beauty of this area, the Ruby Mountains, was all the eye candy I needed to keep me entertained for a few days.
Terminal Cancer from the road. April 2021
When most people think of Nevada (and…its NOT Ne-VAH-duh, its Nevaduh!), they surely think of Las Vegas first, and then who knows what next. However, Nevada has more mountain ranges than any other state in the country. Many of them get moderate to significant snow, and tend to feature lines of large prominence. Sometimes huge faces with 3-5k vertical, or if your lucky, like out in the Ruby’s, you can ski couloir after couloir in quite the rural setting. The Ruby Mountains certainly look and feel nothing like the Nevada most people envision, and if anything, feel much more like the Sierra which are a couple hundred miles to the west.
Geographically, the Ruby Mountains are in NE Nevada and about 4.5-5 hours from Reno, and a little less than that from Salt Lake City, Utah. If you are ever on I-80 in the Elko, NV area, just look south and you will see them. They rise into the sky out of the middle of the Great Basin and are beautifully composed of large granite slabs, rushing creeks, beautiful Aspen trees and old pines, ragged ridges, and an abundance of wildlife. This place really does feel different, and it is, thats why Terminal Cancer is one of the most unique lines in North America, and also why, even though it is a crowded and popular line, it is still very well worth it.
In this photo: Terminal Cancer from the road.
The crew for the trip ended up being Mike Scott, Cale, and my friend Sean Brenker. I know Cale and Sean (from Longmeadow, MA originally) from Steamboat and they now live in Reno too, and Mike is a Vermonter now living in Reno and I have skied with him many of times. This isn’t exactly the early bird crew..Luckily for us, having a good time and a safe time meant departing for the couloir around 9am. Definitely not an alpine start. Having a good time on this line meant letting the apron soften up, but not letting the couloir get too warm. We also needed to be cautious that the snow from the walls above us did not melt too fast. Rapid melting from above could trigger loose rocks, ice, and of course, wet slides, which could be life threatening if these were to occur while a skier is trapped inside the couloir. Fortunately, I had the time to spend the previous two days looking up at this thing from the road so I had a good idea of what the timing looked like and was able to talk with many other skiers about their experience.
On Saturday morning, we awoke to a couple early groups trying to ascend the couloir. It was easy to watch them from the comfort of the bed inside my van (the couloir is literally right off the road), and it was clear that we had made the right choice on timing. There is an apron at the bottom of the couloir that takes a lot of sun but then overnight can freeze to a bullet proof firmness. The apron section is short-lived, but if done on bullet proof snow, it can be quite the annoying start to the day. Especially if you try skinning the apron to the mouth of the couloir. The best option if this is the case, certainly seemed to be boot-packing with crampons. However, luckily by the time we got on the snow, it had softened enough to leave the skins on the skis and we successfully skinned all the way to the base of the couloir, and then even skinned into it before transitioning a couple hundred feet into the couloir. There was some sloppy skinning in a few steep parts of the apron, but altogether, it was pretty quick.
In this photo: The group ascending the apron.
To our delight, the snow inside the couloir was literally full on opposite spectrum to the snow on the apron. The couloir was still chalky from the storm that dropped some cold, light, powder, two days earlier. We also noticed that we were indeed in for the longest mogul run of our lives. Terminal Cancer has become one of the most iconic and desired lines to ski in the west, and as a result, it literally gets tracked out. No joke, this is, more than anything, and inbounds style run with out-of bounds consequences. Of course, you may get fresh tracks if you time it perfectly, but for most of the season, I would guess that you encounter many tracks, and even a fully moguled out couloir like we did. Either way, it still made for some fun turns.
In this photo: Lower portion of the couloir.
We passed a couple groups on the way up, but for the most part, it seemed like the bulk of the crowds had already passed through. We booted our way to the top and there was one crew up there waiting to drop. Its a very nice view from the top and a great place to take a break in the sun. After snacking up and taking it in, we turned our backs to the sun and started dropping into the couloir one by one. It was quite boney at the top and it was necessary to side step a few shark fin rocks. It was also much narrower than I actually expected; at least the top section where in places it seemed like a ski length wide. Very managable though. Slow and steady, we all made our way down. Mike Scott first, followed by Sean, then Cale, and me. We all had a good time skiing this but I must say, I give Cody Townsend and his crew much kudos for making it look as easy as they did. In all honesty, the couloir was fun, but with it being so tracked out, it was kind of nice to exit this thing and open it up on the apron where the snow had turned to some sweet corn.
To sum it all up..Terminal Cancer was well worth the effort (which is minimal). Even though it was super tracked out, its aesthetically an incredibly unique line, and hey, its one of the 50 Classics. We spent the remainder of the day watching people ski the couloir and we decided that the next day would be a mellow day out with Rez. He was one happy pup when he heard that!
After skiing Terminal on Saturday, we ended up enjoying ourself Saturday evening so we took our time to hang around the cars in the morning. The plan was to go explore up the next canyon and to only go as far as Rez could safely go. I wanted to get him some exercise, but I also didn’t want to let him give himself a heart attacked chasing me all over the snow all day.
We were just finally getting on our way before a gentleman in a white pick-up truck rolled by. There were a lot of trucks on this road and frankly, we just kept out heads down most of the day. One after the other, diesel trucks with snowmobiles hitched to the back blew by us, so we stopped paying attention to the vehicles and hoped this would help us forget they were ever there. This guy looked different though.
He had on North Face hi-loft down, and upon further investigation, seemed to look more like a mountaineer than a sledhead. He parked his car and started walking over. As he approached he asked if we had skied it yet. We replied, “Yeah, yesterday.” With a little more banter, he helped himself to the bumper of Cales Subaru, and we kept chatting about the line itself and the local area, etcetera. Finally, Joe, the man on the bumper, acknowledged that he was the first person to ski Terminal Cancer, and just like that you heard each of us say something along the lines of “GTFOH!” Turns out Joe (Joe Royer) pioneered this line in the 70’s and his friend named the line. When Joe told him he was going to ski it, his buddy said something along the lines of, “Man, you would have to have terminal cancer to want to ski that.” From there it was history, and Joe went on to successfully ski it, thus earning the first ski descent of the now iconic Terminal Cancer Couloir. Pretty damn cool. He was a joy to talk with and it was also fun to learn that he was a real local. A guy that got sent to rural Nevada in his 20’s because his parents thought he could cause “less trouble out there.” He certainly made the best of his adventurous personality by going on and founding Ruby Mountain Heli Guides which is the only helicopter skiing operation in Nevada.
After talking with Joe we carried the stoke with us and went for a tour with Rez up into Thomas Creek. There are some great ski opportunities back in that area but the temperatures were not cooperating and thus made the snow difficult for Rez, and for myself, because I chose to Telemark that day and well, Im just getting used to these skis and not exactly a pro yet! I hope to gain the skills to Telemark full time but until then I will be clicking in my heal for the dicier outings.
We are one day closer to winter!