Last Saturday we followed a masterful skin track up the Argenta aprons on Mt. Kessler and caught the trail breakers right on the summit, who turned out to be Alecs Barton and two friends.  I’d met Alecs in passing before and we had a lot of common friends and interests, so it was fun catching up with him in such a beautiful spot.  Tragically, within a few minutes of our groups parting ways, Alecs’ group triggered a large avalanche in the West Couloir of Kessler and Alecs died of trauma from the 2,500′ slide.  Alecs was a prolific Wasatch backcountry snowboarder and his death underscores what a treacherous snowpack we have this year.

On top of Kessler with Forrest Shearer on the left and Alecs Barton in the center with the bright yellow backpack.

The next day we toured in a different canyon and came across Ted Wilson’s dreaded “red snake” of a traffic jam, which he claims will be fixed by selling off 30.3 acres of prime public land to the Talisker real estate development company so they can put in a gondola.  As with two other occasions this season, the cause of the traffic back up was a car going off the road, which in this case resulted in serious injuries.  It was the second time this year I’d seen a major wreck right at this spot (bottom end of the “Seven Sisters”  area) and it made me wonder how many wrecks and fatalities LCC & BCC see every year.  It seems like a public transportation system up this canyon would both reduce accidents and traffic jams, whereas adding yet another lift would increase both.

Quick! We need another tram before we can open the road!

Dawn Patrollers in LCC have been a growing issue over the last few years as they prevent UDOT from safely shooting the big south facing paths (Little Pine, White Pine, Tanners, Superior, etc) that threaten the road. The Salt Lake County Sheriffs office sends out road closure text messages (sign up here), but there is also a new sign in the White Pine lot with flashers on it.  If the flashers are on, please avoid the north side of the road.

The lower elevations are still far from filled in and most of the steeper lines are too sketchy to ski, but if you can find low to mid angle, mid elevation, sheltered terrain, the skiing is actually pretty good.

Doc Brock shredding the LAB. Nice ass.

And, least anyone think that the Wasatch Mountains are not multi-use and in close proximity to a major city, here’s a photo from last Sunday, which is something that you probably won’t see deep in the Alaska Range…

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In upper elevation terrain, storm totals almost covered the exposed rocks, dirt and budding tulips.  Ski Utah is expected to issue a press release soon and the Crayons Ski Resort drafted BS-2012 House Republican Bill to appropriate 200 more acres of terrain to meet expected skier demand as a result of the storm.
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Help support StraightChuter.com and inspect the snowpack with a Backcountry Access Snow Study Kit from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…

Unlike this year….

Today it was raining at 7,100′ in Park City, which hurts, but given how weak and rotten the existing snowpack is, what little of it we have, it may be the best thing.  It’s like calling for a Do Over on winter.

The 2012 Skiing Magazine Adventure Issue with 1/2 of the spectacular Grant Gunderson photo on the cover.

The second purchase was the 40th Anniversary issue of Powder Magazine. I was especially psyched to see this as it was kind of a flashback to the vintage, high quality days of Powder Magazine and did an excellent job capturing the spirit of skiing in the last 4 decades. It has some fantastic retro ads from the 80′s and 90′s, and killer photos of Glen Plake, Mike Hattrup and many others as young punksters.  They also wrangled many of the past editors and managing editors, including Les Anthony, Rob Story, Steve Casimiro, and Jake Mo, into writing about their experiences at Powder, which in itself is like a history of the history of the sport.  Plus, many of them damn funny as well as being excellent writers.

Powder Mag's 40th Anniversary issue - a collector's item for sure.

One of my favorite articles from Powder’s 40th was titled “Legacy” and is all about skiing families.  It includes profiles of the Chickering-Ayers from Mad River, the Collinsons from Snowbird, Mahres, Gaffney’s, Pehotas and Newcombs.  I especially love the Bruce Benedict photo on page 23 of a dad teaching his kid to ski.  You can smell the smoke coming off of dad’s thighs from doing an endless power wedge, feel the slop in his unbuckled boots and sense his desire to pass along the gift of skiing to Little Emily, as it says on her hat.  “Come on, come on… straighten those skis out, look forward, concentrate.  This is going to be a blast!’
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I’m generally bad with dates, but know that I first met Ted on April 3rd, 1993.  I remember this date as I met him in a hospital emergency room where is nephew, Roman Latta, was in critical condition after being  caught and buried in an avalanche while skiing with me and some other friends earlier that day. I had known Roman for only an hour or two in total before the accident happened, and from the Alaska plates on his Jeep, I thought he was from out of town. As I walked into the emergency room, I was floored to see it packed with people and soon learned that Roman was from Salt Lake City and a large group of family and friends were there to support him, including Uncle Ted.  It was a sobering lesson and put a very human face on avalanches for me.

The Central Wasatch Mountains is a tiny little range and after skiing here for a few years, there is often only one or two degrees of separation between people. Due to it being right near a major city and having weird drinking laws, I don’t think it has nearly the cohesive community of places like Jackson Hole or Tahoe, but it is very common to have lots of casual friends, or know of people through immediate friends.  This is both good and bad.  It is good as skiing buddies are the best friends on earth and everyone has a mutual love of a common interest – skiing (or boarding).  It is bad as inevitably in a small range like this, conflicts arise and you find yourself on opposite sides of a fierce debate with someone you know as a friend or have skied with. To complicate this issue, tons of skiers/riders work for the ski industry as guides, instructors, patroller, etc., and they are bound by their employer not to criticize them.  Being a free agent with no ties to a ski resort or government agency, people often feed me inside scoops on upcoming controversial developments to help spread the alarm, which I am happy to do, although it often alienates friends.

This is unfortunate, but I also feel very strongly about preserving the Wasatch Mountains, so it comes with the territory. However, many people are not in the position to voice their opinions, which is how many of these controversial projects get rammed through.  Public meetings are held and the same ten people speak out against them, while in the background far more people are grumbling about it under their breath.  Since moving back to Utah twenty years ago I have seen a vast explosion of development, and that is nothing compared to what the people who have lived here continuously since the 1960′s have seen.  It seems obvious to me that if development isn’t reined in the Wasatch will soon become yet another over-priced, over-groomed, over-hyped run of the mill mega resort.  The sad part of this is that for many people, this moment can’t come soon enough.

A 30 second video demonstration:

A big part of this is that recreational snowmobiling is prohibited in mainland Norway (and many parts of Europe) so Svalbard is one of the few places you can use them.  They are also used extensively for group tours where you might have up to 30 rental sleds all traveling together.  Unlike in the US and Canada, most of these sleds are heavy duty touring rigs with long tracks, heated everything, dual seats, huge displacements (1000cc and up were commonplace) and were four-stroke.  Most of the terrain within 3 hours of Longyearbyen is part of “Area 10″ which requires no special permits and has ideal scooter touring terrain and conditions – long gentle valleys and generally compact snow.

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After being just the two of us so far on this trip, it is fun to see other people starting to arrive from all other parts of the world (with a strong emphasis on the Tahoe7Truckee area) and get psyched up to go out on another aventure.  The boat is a Challenge 67, which was built as one of 16 identical boats for a “wrong way” around the world sailing race.  It is steel hulled and capable of bounching off of ice and should hold our crew comfortably.  Out plan is to head up to the north and see what kind of mountains there are to ski in the area.  With 24 hours of BEAMING sunlight, the schedule is wide open  and the plan is to take things as they come.  It should be fun!

One of the most influential things I’ve ever read was a fortune cookie which said “Practice Saying Yes.”  It wasn’t even my fortune, but I adopted the philosophy and it has served as a starting point for many, many expeditions.  Trips take on a life of their own, but the first step is to commit to it and then hope some of your skier buddies have read the same fortune and are also willing to say “yes.”  From there, you never know what will happen.

My upcoming trip is to Svalbard, which is a chain of islands to the NW of Norway.  I first heard of this area through Doug Stoup, then again through Kris Erickson and also through Kip Garre.  This trip was originally going to be a trio, but with Kip’s passing, it is now Noah Howell and myself for the first two parts of the journey.  To begin with, we are going to use kites to move around in an area named Dicksonland where we hope to find some nice couloirs which you can glean a hint of from the topo maps of the area.  This trip has been on and off and only recently came together, so I won’t be doing any web updates or call ins.

Kiting to couloirs in 2002 on Baffin Island with Brad Barlage. This trip really set the hook for me on kite assisted skiing as I hate walking long distances on flat terrain. With kites, you can cover huge distances and have fun at the same time. Or, you can go nowhere if there is no wind.

After this ten day stint, we will return to the main town, Longyearbyen, where we are meeting up with Doug Stoup and about six other people to board a 65′ boat which will act as our floating basecamp while we scout for skiable lines from the sea.  This is the maiden voyage of Ice Axe Expeditions (Doug’s company) Norwegian Ski Cruise, which if all goes well will be an annual offering.

The third and final segment of the trip is a second week on the boat with a new group.  The idea with this trip is to push further north on Svalbard and potentially ski above the 80th parallel, which would be a fantastically unique experience in a dances with Polar Bears kind of way.

Hanging in the rain with Doug Stoup in Antarctica a loooong time ago. Doug easily gets my vote for most traveled person I know, especially in the higher latitudes.

Even after doing lots of trips, they don’t seem to get much easier to prepare for and there is always a ton of little details to take care of.  So far, this trip has been nice as I’m already geared up with 96% of what I need (kites, skis, camping stuff, etc.) and hardly needed to get anything new.  As always, I am deeply grateful for all of the assistance I get from companies like Mountain Hardwear, K2, Scarpa and Backcountry.com for helping feed my habit.  Not only do they make and sell great gear, but they help to make sure it is thoroughly tested in wild places.  Thanks!

And of course, my ultimate thanks goes out to my wife, Polly, who makes it possible to have my cake and eat it too. If I had to choose between trips and family, I’d take family in a heartbeat, but so far I haven’t had to make the choice.

Happy turns,
Andrew

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The coveted "Wasatch Tours - 0" book. Rumors have it that there are pristine versions buried in forgotten libraries of Deer Valley mansions and that they are listed on eBay for $600.

I started touring on the See’m & Ski’em program which involved wandering around until you saw something to ski, and then go do it.  The first thing that caught my eye when I finally saw “Wasatch Tours” was all of the beautiful aerial photos with routes named “A.”  These always looked like the choice lines and I assumed there were routes B, C and D elsewhere in the book, but in fact the authors, Alexis Kelner and David Hanscom, were marking known avalanche paths.

A page from "Wasatch Tours 0" with the distinctive "A" marking.

During an early outing in Cardiac Bowl, Dave Hanscom’s touring party triggered a huge avalanche which caught and carried a member of their group, who luckily survived.  This was pre beacons, and in a large part, before avalanche eduction even got started. As such, a major impetus of “Wasatch Tours” was to identify, and thus avoid, known avalanche paths.  By the time I got my hands on a copy, the prevailing attitude had swung 180 degrees with a friend telling me “Look for the “A’s” – that’s the best skiing.”   I was thinking of this progression (?) the other day when I read a Powder Magazine article on Extreme Skiing which said the the future of the sport finding big, steep lines and skiing them in deep snow, as fast as possible.  Time will tell, but meanwhile, Kelner and Hanscomb are still very much alive and still skiing.

Dave Hanscomb (left) and Alexis Kelner with a copy of the original "Wasatch Tours."

In 1993, Kelner & Hascomb updated and expanded Wasatch Tours into a three book series which is still the bible of backcountry skiing in the Wasatch. Before that, Alexis Kelner was very involved with proposing the Lone Peak and Mt. Olympus Wilderness areas, and getting them passed. Every time I skin by one of those wooden signs marking the boundaries of these fantastic resources I say a quiet “Thanks Alexis!”  Alexis and two other friends later went on to form the conservation group “Save Our Canyons” which has been an instrumental voice in protecting the mountains, water and environment that makes the Salt Lake area such an attractive place to live.  Save Our Canyons is still going strong 37+ years later.

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;)

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