The “Banana Couloir” is really not a couloir, but rather, a 3,300 foot slide path of epic proportions. The entire descent is pure “fall line”, sustaining an average slope angle just above 30 degrees with no pitches steeper than 38 degrees, making for a incredible moderate objective catered to fast and fluid skiing.
On January 11th, 2026, the Alpine Peanut and I teamed up with longtime friend of the blog Mike Parri for a high pressure adventure on Prospectors Mountain. Our objective was the Banana Couloir, which I skied once with John Modlish a few years ago. The Banana has been a crowning objective for Bobbi in her young ski mountaineering progression. We climbed the route last May with intentions to ski it, but warming surfaces forced a descent down a different line on the south face. Today, with single digit valley temps, warming wasn’t a concern. Powder was the goal.
After much deliberation over the respective approach distances from two different trailheads – Death Canyon and Granite Canyon, we chose Granite. This appears to be the standard strategy, and is 30 minutes closer from our homes in Idaho. Reaching the top of the Banana involves some 5,000 feet of elevation gain and a lengthy circuitous approach through a heavily featured low forest known as “the maze”. I’m not a GPX track guy, but every time I get lost in the maze, I condemn myself for not adopting 21st century digital mapping tactics. We reached the base of the line in one bushy hour and began our slog to the sky. A skin track was in place from the day before, but sticky skinning conditions forced us to cut our own track up shaded trees on either side of the Banana. We switched to boots at the final headwall and made the ~11,000 foot summit in five moderate paced hours.
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The skiing was absolutely stellar, sun settled powder from the Banana gods. The team ripped the top 2,000 feet fast and fluid, leap frogging for several hundred feet at a time. The bottom 1,000 feet was sun softened mank, but still playful and carveable. 1,000 more feet of gentle preserved powder meadow skipping, accented by log hurdling, boulder bouncing and nordic style double polling, saw us to the Moose-Wilson Road. The Banana is a true skier’s line, reminiscent of a condensed Skillet Glacier. Fall line descents of this caliber are rare for the Teton Range.
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Ski mountaineering, rock climbing, ice climbing and all other forms of mountain recreation are inherently dangerous. Should you decide to attempt anything you read about in this article, you are doing so at your own risk! This article is written to the best possible level of accuracy and detail, but I am only human – information could be presented wrong. Furthermore, conditions in the mountains are subject to change at any time. Ten Thousand Too Far and Brandon Wanthal are not liable for any actions or repercussions acted upon or suffered from the result of this article’s reading.
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