I’ve skied a couple of routes on Pyramid. The one I had the best time on was on the opposite side, but I couldn’t get it from the summit (started about 100 vertical feet below summit). So I (along with Jeff Maus) skied the first 1,000 vert of Landry route and exited to the 13,000 foot saddle then skied down into the north cirque. Due to avalanche danger we belayed quite a bit of the upper section, but doing so was kind of a joke as we didn’t have good anchors. We were psyched to get down the whole peak on skis from exact summit, but our style would not have made it into a TGR film (grin). Dav, Ted and Neal’s descent was the most elegant so far as they used no ropes and were able to ski it 100%. That’s as it should be, the next generation should be improving on the one that came before — otherwise it would be boring!

I’m truly excited that Landry’s fine route finally got a second! Took long enough, but perhaps all these guys were distracted by terrain parks or movie stints or something like that (grin). Seriously, the problem with the route is that it’s hardly ever in condition for a safe clean descent. Plenty of people could have skied it after Landry, but simply did not find it in condition.

The Dav group deserves cred for not only excellent skiing, but being able to pick the day.

Definitely a beautiful line…

-B.J. Sbarra