Dropping off a massive cornice into the Dog Leg bowl in Crystal Mountain Backcountry
Skiing Dogleg Peak in the Crystal Mountain backcountry

Dogleg bowl was my first introduction to the backcountry of Crystal Mountain Ski resort. Accessed via a hour long boot pack it access a small but nice alpine bowl. We would lay out a boot pack and lap it numerous times before riding down to Silver Basin. This trip was one of those days that Dan and I made our way out in the middle of a storm.

Doing Quick Laps on the Dogleg Bowl

After getting nuked with over 3 feet of fresh Powder in 2 days Dan and I decided to take advantage of some hero snow conditions. Our plan was simple to lap up the Dogleg bowl and the Dogleg Chute up in Silver Basin in the Crystal Mountain backcountry.

Spotting my landing off a cornice and wondering how big it really was
Spotting my landing off a cornice and wondering how big it really is

Now that I look back at the trip I think that it was crazy to head into the zone after such a huge snow fall, not to mention jumping off massive cornices but at the time we had no clue what we were doing and all we really cared about was finding the best snow that we could access and at the time Dan didn’t have touring gear so we could put in a boot pack and nail the lines as much as we wanted before heading back to the resort and calling it a day.

Dropping off a massive cornice into the Dog Leg bowl in Crystal Mountain Backcountry
Dropping off a massive cornice

One lap after another we made the most out of our boot pack doing a 300 foot line back down to our ascent tracks than find what looked like the best line to ride or the biggest air to take.

Dan doing a backflip off a massive cornice in the Dog Leg Bowl
Dan doing a backflip off a massive cornice

Fortunately the snow made for soft landings and it was really deep. We were just excited to be having fun and riding lap after lap of around 500 feet of steep trees.

Getting my first snowboard run into the Dog Leg Bowl in Silver Basin
Laying down my first turns off the ridge

When we weren’t dropping off cornices we were riding steep trees the the lower trees in the photo below. While you can’t see it in this photo our boot pack went from down there to a low col above.

Dan riding into the Dog Leg Bowl in Silver Basin
Dan enjoying some amazing powder turns

Heading up to the Dogleg Couloir

Once we were happy with tracking out Dogleg Bowl we put in our final boot pack to the top of Dogleg Peak and after a bit of searching we were able to find the line that we were looking for.

Scoping out the Dog Leg chute in Silver Basin in the Crystal Mountain Backcountry
Scoping out the Dog Leg chute

We were fortunate to have the common sense to drop in one at a time and it was great snow top to bottom making are way past the crux one at a time then traversing to a safe zone before the second person dropped in.

Finding the entrance to the Dog Leg Chute in Silver Basin in the Crystal Mountain Backcountry
Finding the entrance to the Dog Leg Chute

As the photos show this area was loaded with new snow. It was great turns but definitely not stable conditions. It’s a beautiful line when it is good and that day it was good.

Once at the bottom we were pretty excited as it was amazing snow and we got first tracks down the line being fortunate that nothing bad had happened. I still shake my head when I think of the time we went to Dogleg Bowl and Dogleg chute

Looking back up at the Dog Leg Chute in the Crystal Mountain Backcountry
Looking back up at the Dog Leg Chute

Thank you for reading this trip to Dogleg Bowl. If you want to see more ski tours within Crystal Mountain Backcountry check out this link