Whitetail Couloir
It all begins with an idea.
This was one for the record books. Day one we basecamped at Shadow Lake, one of our favorite spots in the range. The next morning we climbed nearly to the top of Whitetail Couloir and skied down. The following day we hit Marker, Ship, Triangle, Bowback, and Kookoo lakes. The next morning we packed up at Silt Lakes and headed out.
With skis, boots, crampons, ice axes, and gear, the pack weighed around 60 lbs. It's about 6 miles and 2,000 vertical feet to Shadow Lake — with a normal pack, the hike isn't bad. You follow a trail to the footbridge that brings you up toward Sundance Pass; from there you're off-trail, but the walking stays easy. The next morning we started for the top: roughly 3,000 vertical feet over 0.6 miles, and a 60% grade coming back down. In 2014, the year of this trip, the snow wasn't prime — there was little to no snow from the peak down the first hundred feet, so skiing from the very top wasn't possible. We made it to about 12,000 feet, clicked in, and headed down.
The climb to Marker — the highest fishable lake in Montana — is steep but short. We built a sweet rock shelter next to the giant boulder near the outlet; let us know if it's still there. It was windy, but the fishing was excellent: lots of 20-inch fish. From there the other lakes are an easy walk, except Kookoo, which is a 200-foot drop down and back up. By our rule, you have to physically touch a lake to count it. We caught fish only at Kookoo — and honestly didn't land anything in July 2014.
