3/18 to 3/19/2023 – There are certain ski lines that linger in the back of your mind for a long while. This is one of those ski lines: Grey Wolf Peak’s West Couloir. This little beauty is a Western Montana classic that has been well publicized on the internet ever since RandoSteve posted up a trip report on his blog about it back in 2009, and yet is only skied by a handful of folks each season. This is probably due to the either monster day or classy yet honest overnight required to enjoy turns down this sliver of solitude. After years of not going for it and many discussions with close touring partners about the line, George and I decided to meet up and give it a whirl in mid-March during a weekend window of high pressure and stability.

We met up the night before in St. Ignatius and car camped where the snow stopped us on the road to St. Mary reservoir. The next morning we donned packs and started the long walk up and in. There was decent low elevation snow coverage and the bushwhacking was light duty at its worst as we ascended the shoulder of East St. Mary peak. Carrying overnight packs made the climb a very solid effort and we thoroughly enjoyed the casual turns down towards No Fish Lake in the late afternoon. We set camp in a pocket of trees just outside of the apron of the couloir, basked in the alpine wonder of clear weather and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company that evening.

The next morning we were up and rolling early with the idea of a bonus ski of the connected backside (East) couloir powering us up the climb. We climbed fluidly together, as we have done since our first blind ski date a few years ago (thanks Justin!), and enjoyed the incredible position we found ourselves in while ascending. Upon topping out, it appeared that the sunshine was doing it’s best to shut down our bonus backside lap – so we called it and milked a casual transition to get into the best headspace for descent. Then we descended. And all was good and right in our little world of steep classic couloir skiing.

Of course that’s not the end of the story… because we still had to pack camp back up then climb back out to the ridgeline, descend some real sloppy spring snow and mosey along the road back to the trucks… then rally back to our respective homes that night. The beauty of classic ski lines is that all the additional shenanigans fade away after such a good day with such a good buddy. Let’s do more amigo!