Sky Pilot 

I skied this route with Kyle Crawford, late June, perhaps 2003. (SKIING PERSPECTIVE) Sky Pilot in a skier's eye is the only prominent skiable couloir that tops the ridge between Starlight and Shooting Star, and is the most snow filled looking double fall line couloir visible from miles away when viewed from the north. It runs sorta parallel with shooting star, below it, lookers left. This couloir has a relatively short ski window, and I wouldnt imagine it gets many skiers. Though the description says its the easiest couloir on James, skiing this line is considerably more committing, technical and exposed than the starlight, and not as straight forward as shooting star. Gerry Roach rates the climb grade II class 4 moderate snow, and calls it a "serious undertaking". I say 3.5 stars if you climb and ski it. For a skier, this route has max exposure, and for that matter deserves the classic status for a ski mountaineering route. I strongly recommended that you climb it first. Changing conditions of this couloir make an onsight descent for a skier really commiting. X or VS consequence throughout much of the upper half of the route. For our descent, the upper entrance pitch was cornice free, and wasn't yet revealing any ice. The majority of the upper half of the route stayed under 45 degrees, however we encountered two very short crux sections within the upper half of the route that briefly approached 60 degrees double fall line ish. We were comfortable skiing the first crux and downclimbed the second short section ropeless. If we were ascending, these angles might be minimized by micro route selection, but we were trying to keep our skis on. The first crux, or the elbow, (initial hard skiers left traverse) I was surprised to see a gear belay, and two climbers crouched in take cover survival mode, unaware skiers were in the couloir, and confused about why so much snow and debris was being flushed down the route and off into space at the elbow from our skiing!. The leader grinned, and replied "only in Colorado would skiers be skiing a climbing route" shaking his head. Foolishly, WE were in the wrong route. They gladly accepted our apology, since they thought we were surely to die moments later. So for us, the route didn't ski free, since we downclimbed 60 feet or so. We originally intended on skiing the starlight couloir, which we later did. Though mistaken, we skied this line instead! lesson learned. This route is etched in both of our memories. If your familiar with the Lou Dawson guide scale, I'd rate 90% of the route S4, and the other 10% S6- though with changing conditions, potentially up to S7+. For scale, starlight S4-. The climb tops the ridge above 13,000 feet. If I were to repeat the route, I would bring a short rope and pickets, maybe some nuts, though would hope not to use them. The bottom half of the route is clean 35-40 degree turns. The route shows many signs of frequent rockfall. Great Route.