Fat Times

A hut trip to the heart of Idaho’s Sawtooths.

- Matt Hansen

I COULD TELL YOU ABOUT THE JC COULOIR. How it was steeper than anything I’d skied in years, and how I wanted to vomit looking down the snug cornice entrance, and how I used an ice axe to lower myself through that cornice into the shady, firm 1,500-vertical-foot couloir in the middle of Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains.

I could tell you how Gary Mackenzie, Afro sprouting wildly from his helmet with maniac grin to match, skied it with a broken boot. Or how his brother, Max, all hairy and bearded, looked like a stunt double for the almighty Lord Himself. How Dorian Densmore, who prides himself on skiing weird lines from Wyoming to Argentina, dryly and sarcastically said, “Oh, this is awesome,” as he lowered himself into the crux, left hand gripping the snow above him while his skis bowed disgustingly between rock and ice and nothing below but the breezes between his kneeses. Or how photographer Chris Figenshau slipped it like a Jedi and how Cody Barnhill actually made real turns, stamping the end of his run with an exasperated, “Mother fucker that was gnarly!”

And that was the truth. As we booted up the gut, on day two of a four-day trip to the Williams Peak Hut, we renamed it to suit the less than desirable conditions—let’s just say it rhymes with “Cheeses Hucking Rice.” Though long, dramatic lines like the JC are why you come to the Sawtooths, which stacks couloirs like cards in a deck across its 40 miles, this particular one was memorable only for how bad it was—kind of like when Gary took an obligatory naked lap on the first day for forgetting his outerwear.