On the morning this emerges, I’m 175 days post-op from back surgery for a herniated disc. Almost half a year. Having just returned from a fine day in the mountains today, I was reflecting on a few good days from before and after surgery. With only a few words, here are some photos.
The Ramp
Spring 2024. An attractive little line on the West side of Broken Top. Somewhat minigolf but with great position and exposure. My fellow ER doc and fast-walking ski partner Noah was game to go give it a look. It turned out to be perfect corn. Good enough that we knocked out a second lap in time to get back for kids and work.
Midwinter, 2025
Post-surgery. I wasn’t allowed to really start skiing again until the second week of February this year, so I missed a lot of the very robust start to our season. Thankfully, there were still chances for a number of quite good powder days before the spring sun returned.
Diller Headwall
I’ve been remiss not to get out and ski more with Jason, founder and editor over at The High Route. He has been nothing but generous with his time, energy, and information.
At my suggestion, we started at 0515 from Pole Creek trailhead for a look at the Diller Headwall, the king line on Middle Sister and a temptation visible from town. He admitted that he thought we were heading up awfully early, but as usual, I needed to get back to the kids.
Sunrise was stellar, the day clear and calm. The snow was, however, quite firmly frozen. The first look that we got towards the Diller looked good. Smooooth. And still somewhat far away. It’s steep and East facing, so it catches the sun. Right?
Though walking up the chunky rime in the windy shade of the South ridge of Middle Sister didn’t increase my confidence at all that we’d have passable conditions, one look over into the Diller Headwall revealed perfectly smooth and just-ripe corn snow. The angle and the directness of the line gave us some heartburn, but I volunteered to “check” the first few turns and we were soon rewarded.
It was damn near perfect. You’d be hard pressed to talk me into skiing it in anything but, particularly now. We were even back at the car by noon and home by 1, just in time for nap lay down.