Getting hard to find the goods in the ‘satch. The upper elevations are filled in, but full of blown out crusty snow. The more sheltered mid elevations have good snow, but not much coverage. The fun zone is currently very slim.
Tag Archive for 'current conditions'
Ninety-nine percent of enjoying backcountry skiing has to do with knowing where to find good, safe snow. It only takes a few times of hiking all day only to ski endless windjack to send skiers scurrying back to the resorts. The current Wasatch conditions are especially tough as the snow has barely filled in to 7,500′ and the exposed, upper elevations have high avalanche danger. Moderate angle, mid to upper elevation, north facing, shelters slopes are hard to find in the Wasatch, or in our case, just hard to get to.
What gentle slopes lack in angle can be made up for in speed to deliver the same thrill. A little EweTube video from Sunday morning:
We didn’t see any avalanches (kind of disappointing as we were looking for some), but as we crossed under the field where Brad is skiing in the photo below, the whole area ripped with a series of rolling collapses. Very exciting!
- B-Rad bouncing through the bumps.
- Rick Angell shoving some low angle pow around.
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Whessh! Today had some tough skiing, skinning and avalanche conditions. With low temps, high winds, limited visibility and high avalanche danger everywhere, we stuck to safe ridgelines and low angle terrain.
- As we were skinning along this gentle ridgeline, a crack shot out from under my feet as I took this photo, went about 50′ behind me and then roughly 50′ past Polly (second person in the photo).
- Low angle skiing was on the menu for today. Luckily, it was still very tasty.
We felt plenty of collapsing “whoomphs” on all aspects and angles. Whomphing and shooting cracks are the avalanche equivalent of a snarling dog with his ears pulled back – getting bitten is immanent and it is best to give it wide berth.
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If you keep your expectations low and look in the right places, the Wasatch backcountry has some pretty good skiing. The trick to finding it is to look in what is usually the most avalanche prone areas around – high, north-facing and wind loaded. Narrow chutes seem to have held on to almost all of their snow so far, as evidenced by the Alta Ski Resort opening Main Baldy Chute yesterday while much of the rest of the area is rocks.
- Skinning skills…. or hospital bills. Dylan Freed and Courtney Phillips tip-toeing up a steep chute filled with rocks, ice and crusty snow.
- Even some of the open, exposed slopes were good, if you could find a high one with minimal talus underneath.
- Dylan Freed at speed. Smoke’m if you got’em.
- DJ Freed slicing and dicing in a Wasatch chute.
Dylan was skeptical when I called him the night before with glowing reports of knee deep powder, but came along for the exercise. After the run above, Dylan even let on that it “Wasn’t too bad.” which is a pretty high compliment coming from the Wasatch’s toughest customer. :)
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Summer bummer… hate heat. These are a few of my least favorite things.
Utah is a “Pretty Great State” three out of four seasons, with summer being skull-popping hot and unpleasant. While the first snow may be far from actual skiing, it at least marks the end to the season of misery here in Utah.
From the Alta webcam, Sept 1, 2008:
- Oh yeah….!
Coming up at 10:00am – the Chuting Spree Contest Clue #2…
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Alta – Still One Bony Pony
I’m unofficially starting to worry about this year’s snowpack. The official worrying begins after Thanksgiving if there is still no new snow, but as of right now, the area around Alta is looking mighty bony and dry. Sigh. A “great” early season starts around Halloween and continues all year long. A normal one kicks in around Thanksgiving, and a really sad one waits until Christmas (essssh… please, no) to finally fill in. For backcountry skiing in the Wasatch, you need about a three foot base to make it happen.
Oftentimes, what separates a good season from a bad one is how low the snowpack fills in. Since the Wasatch is a fairly small range, if it is skiable all the way down to 6,000′ there will be five times the amount of terrain available if it is only filled in above 8,000′. Right now, there are a few north facing patches above 9,000′ but not many.
But, last year started out like this (see photo above) and it was a stellar season. 2007/08 was only slightly above average in total snowfall, but it came in with very nice layering, where we had frequent storms in the 8″ to 12″ range, which refreshed everything, while still keeping the snowpack relatively stable. Huge storms are good for the overall depth, but often cause tough trailbreaking, dangerous conditions and settle out after a day or so. A few years ago (2003?) the Wasatch went from bone dry to 111″ in three days right around this time of year, so I’m crossing my tips that that will happen again sometime soon.
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