I’ve updated my Wasatch early season opinion from “Pretty good” to “Best in memory.” I may not have the best memory, but I’ve been out three out of the last four days and haven’t hit a rock except when I was trying to. It is still bony below 7,500′ (approx base of Snowbird), but up high, especially on north facing slopes, it is as good as almost anytime last year. The resorts are all open and seem to be charging away as well.
One of the things that makes this season so good is that the snow has come in in classic Wasatch style – lots of medium sized storms that set up nicely, then get a new layer of refresh on it a day later. The big 100″ storms are impressive, but tend to shut everything down, have high avalanche danger and the skiing is only good for a day or so before it sets up. What makes the Wasatch so good is a pattern of constant refresh, which is what we have had so far this year (fingers crossed in case I jinx it). Continue reading ‘November Pow Update’
I know, a few days ago I said I wasn’t in a rush to get out, but then it continued to dump snow and Polly reminded me that we missed out on the early turns last year and then had to wait another four weeks until it snowed again. One of the hardest parts about getting out for the first time is deciding which skis are going to be sacrificed to the rock gods and this season my beloved 2006 Chugoris (aka “Chugs”) took one for the team, although the damage was surprisingly light.
We headed up to one of my favorite little high, sheltered, windloaded, northfacing snow traps which looked totally filled in. I decided to boot up to get a feel for the early season snowpack and was glad I did as there were some thigh-deep spots which had a chunky slab on top of a 3″ deep graupel layer. Continue reading ‘First Day of the 2009/10 Season’
The South Ridge of Mt. Superior is an all time classic alpine scramble in the Central Wasatch Mountains. It can be done in the winter, but due to cornices and steep slopes on each side, I think it is far more fun in the summer, especially as preseason training. The climb is almost exactly 3,000′ and is often done as a loop by going up the south ridge, then running along the east ridge trail back to Pole Line (Cardiff) Pass, then down to Alta and back to your car on the road.
Rick running back to the car after completing the loop.
There is no real route to speak of, and although the climbing guidebook rates it 5.4 or so, you can always avoid harder sections by traversing out onto the south face. It is a very fun outing on mostly solid rock, but should be treated with a good dose of respect as there have been fatalities on it, including a good friend, Dan Rector.
With Salt Lake City being so close and the access to the Tri-Canyons being so limited, most Wasatch backcountry skiers end up carpooling for all or part of their trip up to the trailheads. There are seven or so Park & Rides to chose from and the choice of where to meet can sometimes be more difficult than where to ski. If I hadn’t wasted so much time thinking about all of the various Park & Ride permutations, I could have been a Cardiologist.
A big factor for me is that I HATE getting my car broken into, so I avoid LCC and BCC as much as possible as they are plagued by vermin who will smash your window for the pennies in your change drawer. Cowboy Partners is nice, but you are out of luck for food, shopping or poo’ing. I like the Swamp Lot, but you have to double back to get to BCC. The 7-11 Mud Lot is central and has easy access to beer, but don’t drop your glove there.
There are so many factors that it boggles a single-celled ski mountaineering brain. Technically the Big Cottonwood Park & Ride is the best and the quaint little 3800 lot is the worst, but it all depends on where you are going.
I go for 3900th whenever possible (easy freeway access, longest carpool, nearby shopping and getting cuter by the minute) with the Swamp Lot being a close second (surrounded by houses and roads, so less theft, and central for many Sandy partners).
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A short photo Trip Report (TR) to pass the time until 10:00am when the Chuting Spree Clue #2 comes up…
With dubious weather and no real objectives, I was planning on just going out for a few turns with Polly today, but the Wasatch had something else in mind, namely one of the best powder days of the entire season. The recent storm came in warm and bonded well with the old snow before slowly getting colder and colder, while adding on up to 36″ of new. The skiing was insanely good and surprisingly stable, although if the high winds that are forecast in the next few days come through, this particular powder party will be over. But, it was goodgreat excellent while it lasted.
Toledo Bowl, Toledo Chute, Pole Line Pass, Little Superior and Superior doing a J.R.R. Tolkien Middle Earth impersonation.
Bruce Edgerly, Vice President of Marketing at Backcountry Access, Inc. This counted as a business meeting, so I'm writing it off my daily expenses (1/10th of three AAA batteries) on my taxes.
Adam from Backcountry Access in Papaya Days.
Andy from Backcountry Access busting pow.
Pregnant Polly poaching powder. The little one was doing blind-mute-grabs of joy.
If the Wasatch Mountains were to have one single classic mountain face, it would have to be the South Face of Mt. Superior. It has been memorialized on the label of Wasatch Beers “Superior Ale” and anyone who has skied Alta or Snowbird can’t help but look up and see it.
The South Face of Mt. Superior. It would be sacrilege to put a red route indicating line on this beauty. Start at the pointy part and ski it to the bottom. Note the cars on the road below for scale.
At first glance, Superior almost looks too steep to ski, but once you get a proper side view of it, most of the face is a very skiable 30-40 degrees. It starts with a classic pointy summit, opens into a steep hanging snowfield, filters through a series of tight chutes (the crux), then hits a diagonal collector ramp which finally funnels skiers onto huge, wide open aprons. In true Wasatch style, you can ski every last inch right to the road for a run that measures out to almost exactly 3,000′ vertical feet.
The South Face is almost like a ski area unto itself with variations like Little Superior (aka Inferior Superior), Suicide Chute (aka Country Lane), Pinball Alley and many other alternate lines. Facing due south, it gets maximum amounts of sun, but some also has some deep dark features that, against all logic, shelter and protect pockets of powder. It’s not uncommon to get anything from glare ice to soft powder, and everything in between, on a single run down Superior.
A video from Derek Weiss (Piton Productions) showing Superior as it should be:
In many ways, the South Face of Superior is the perfect antithesis of the Y-Couloir, which was the first ski descent of this project. The Y is low elevation, north facing, narrow and sheltered, whereas the SF of Superior is high, south facing and wide open. Oftentimes when one is good, the other will suck, as was the case today when Mother Superior was in the foulest mood I’ve ever seen her in with rocks, ice, flat light, frozen debris and rock-hard ski tracks. To cap it off, halfway down it started to rain. On the positive side, I had the entire slope all to myself.
The SF of Superior today - so bad it was... bad. Flat light, rain, rocks, ice, frozen debris and low snow, yet still great just to be there.
Superior can be ascended by going straight up the South Face (popular in the spring as alpine climbing practice), but most of the time it is summited via the shapely and aesthetic east ridge, which starts at Cardiff Pass (aka Pole Line Pass) right above the quaint hamlet (?) of Alta. In a fat snow year, the ridge can be done entirely on skins, although most of the time there is a nice booter in for the final quarter of it. One of my favorite sections of the entire outing occurs right near the summit where a rock rib forms a wild catwalk in the sky with big air on each side.
Kip and Courtney skinning the catwalk on a previous ascent of the east ridge of Superior.
As a bit of Superior trivia, the true summit of Mt. Superior is what backcountry skiers commonly call “Monte Cristo.” The summit that is commonly skied from is unnamed.
I’ve heard there are over 32 slide paths that hit the Little Cottonwood road, and much to UDOT’s dismay, one person’s slidepath is another person’s idea of an excellent ski descent. As you drive up the LCC road towards Alta, the big south facing guns stack up one after another on your left-hand side and are conveniently marked with signs like “Tanners Slide Path.” Access to these monsters is about as hard as opening your car door and stepping out – voila, you are now on route. (note: you do have to watch where you park or you’ll get towed.)
Stack'em up - the south facing LCC lines ranging in length from 3,000' to 5,000'.
Conveniently marked for your night skiing pleasure...
Of all of the slide paths, Little Pine is the purest in that it is almost a perfectly straight 3,000+ foot line from the ridgetop all the way to the valley floor. Starting from the White Pine trailhead parking lot, you cross the street, then skin or boot the apron for a few minutes until you enter the main chute. From here it is an eternal StairMaster of left/right, left/right booting until you hit the top.
The top of Little Pine Couloir looking over toward Snowbird. photo: courtney phillips
Soft light and hard snow in Little Pine Couloir with the LCC road below.
Being south facing means that it gets the maximum amount of sun, which is good at times (spring corn, faster powder stabilization, etc.), or, like today, can make for some absolutely horrendous skiing. Luckily Courtney Phillips was along for the ride and understands that oftentimes it doesn’t actually have to be fun, to be fun. The entire line was a frozen mess of ski tracks, sun cups and frozen avalanche debris. There was no talk of going back for a second lap.
Skiing the flanks of Little Pine with the Pfiefferhorn, Needle and Coalpit in the background. My ears are still ringing from this descent. photo: courtney phillips
We knew this going into it and there’s nothing like some hack n’ jack skiing to make you appreciate good conditions. If anything, today’s descent will go down in the memory banks as one of those “Remember that time skied Little Pine and it was so rough and icy our legs felt like paint-shaking machines?” Oh well.
Noah Howell and the PowderWhores skied Little Pine a week or so ago and put together this video which does the great line justice:
Tomorrow: Mother Superior
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With a vertical drop of 5,000′, Lisa Falls is the biggest of all the magnificent south facing couloirs that line Little Cottonwood Canyon. When I first skied it roughly fifteen years ago in knee-deep sub 5% powder on a clear, sunny day, it was such an incredible experience that it sold me on the virtues of backcountry skiing and I’ve hardly been back to the resorts since then. A trip down Lisa Falls is an epic adventure, with a headwall, upper couloir section, middle aprons, lower couloir section, a rappel (most likely), then a tight lower that suddenly spits you out right onto the LCC road. Being south facing, it is hard to get in powdery conditions, but the skiing is almost secondary to the overall experience anyway.
Noah Howell pointing out the big gal from across the valley.
Lisa Falls starts right at the gap between the two peaks that form Twin Peaks and slithers all the way down. When conditions are right, my approach of choice is to go up the Tanners slide path, then drop a nice north-facing powder shot before climbing back up to the ridgeline and over to the summit of Twin Peaks.
Jared Inouye booting up Tanners at first light.
Bart Gillespie following the “Lost Again” variation.We climbed until the earth fell away in all directions around us.
A cool aspect of Lisa Falls is that it is so huge that at some point you are likely to find good skiing. Today’s outing had everything from bullet-proof ice to chudder-mank avalanche debris, wet slop, rocks, powder, running water, corn and breakable crust. It is all just part of the package.
Jared entering the middle couloir zone.
Part of the appeal of skiing Lisa Falls is that it takes every trick in the book to make it down in one piece. There’s climbing, sideslipping, rock hopping, rappelling, great skiing and crap all rolled into one.
The rappel in Lisa Falls is almost more of an annoyance than anything. It can be avoided by skirting hard left, but you are trading lots of little miseries for one big one. I prefer to just set an anchor (a piece of wood as a deadman backed up by a sketchy willow tree) and get it over with. I’ve misunderestimated (see you W – have a nice life) how long it is twice and ended up leaving my ropes both times as I’ve had to tie them off full-length and leave them. Such is the price of having fun and there is more rope where this came from. :)
Tomorrow: Looking for a little love…
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The Hypodermic Needle is such a striking, fantastic, obvious couloir that if anyone ever says “I was up at Alta/Snowbird today and saw this amazing looking chute…” there is a 99.9% chance they are talking about The Hypodermic Needle. If you are into chute skiing, one glance at this thing will cause an involuntary yearning in your loins.
The Hypodermic Needle - another classic chute that hardly needs a red line to define it. The shaded face to the right is the Coalpit Headwall and the approach is the same.
A cool aspect of skiing the Needle is that it starts with a bang, then every turn gets a little easier. The top part is full-on mental warfare as you are staring down a long, steep, 45+ degree chute, but after getting a few turns under your bases, you start to relax and enjoy the exposure. By the time you hit the apron, which seems mellow at 35+ degrees, life is too good to believe and you can open it up and let it rip.
Noah Howell busting out the last of the skin track before booting to the summit.
There are two or three ways to approach The Needle and all of them hurt. Knowing there was a booter in on the Y-Couloir, we went up that, then traversed over into Coalpit, then up the ridge to the summit. I was glad Noah was along, as he’d also been up the Y-Couloir three times in the last week. See Mom – I’m not not the only one who does this.
Cameron Peterson, Bart Gillespie, Noah Howell and Andrew McLean. Rawk on.
Through out this project, I’ve been blessed with incredible partners who have seemingly come out of the woodwork. Today I was reminded of a quote from the Metallica documentary “Some Kind of Monster” where the lead singer said “these guys make me play better.” At 35,000′ and counting, my legs are starting to get tattered, but it was so fun to ski with Cameron, Bart and Noah, that it hardly seemed to matter. I’ll get a real job soon – I swear.
Noah Howell slippin' into darkness at the top of the Needle.
The first time I skied The Needle we were so intimidated by it we did it as an overnight trip and camped in Hogum Fork. It just seemed too big, steep and gnarly to do in a day. Nowadays, the hair factor is largely gone (the business end of The Needle is about 1,000′ – not so bad), although it is entirely condition dependant. The Needle is east facing (east = crust), but is so sheltered by rock walls that it is often much better than expected.
Noah sticking it to The Needle.
Mr. Howell in his element in the lower portion of the Needle.
Noah Howell spraying at the top of the Hypodermic Needle apron. Go dog go!
All told, The Needle is roughly a 5,000′ descent, of which 1,000′ is serious and the rest is pure fun. What makes The Needle a Wasatch Classic? Everything. If you only had one day to ski here, this packs it all in – steeps, views, powder, aprons, ease of access and a good return on your hiking dollar.
Tomorrow: Celebrating the new King (Barak Obama) by skiing The Queen. Rat-a-tat-tat, hang on to your hat.
Yow! What a spectacular line! If the NE Couloir of Lone Peak were closer to civilization it would be skied on a daily basis. But, as it is, the King of Couloirs is guarded by a long approach and today it looked like we were probably the first people in it this season.
The stunning NE Couloir on Lone Peak.
In an endless quest to find the easiest way up there, we tried going up Coalpit #4, then traversing over and climbing up the NE Ridge. This was fun, but with 7,750′ of climbing, it is not the easiest way by a few thousand feet. Oh well – luckily Fred Marmsater and Courtney Phillips like to suffer, so we did.
Fred Marmsater climbing up Lone Peak with Timp and the Cold Fusion Couloir in the background.
Courtney Phillips getting photographed from both ends. Fred is using a wide-angle lens to make his ass look fatter.
The NE of Lone has a lot going for it. It is in the Lone Peak Wilderness area, which is surrounded with beautiful clean granite and has a commanding view of the Salt Lake Valley, as well as all the way down to Provo and Mt. Nebo, which is the southern end of the Wasatch range. We saw two sets of tracks in the Bells Canyon drainage, but aside from that, it is a high, lonely corner of the central Wasatch. The couloir itself splits the north face right down the center and at a sustained 45 degrees with a cliff at the bottom, it keeps your attention all the way down. As an added bonus, since it is in the Lone Peak wilderness area, the pesky Wasatch Powderbirds can’t fly in and drop a group on you.
The top of the couloir has a knife-edge ridge which drops down 500+ feet on the backside, so we opted for the safer (a relative term in this case) side entrance. The first ten feet were a bit icy, but then, ohhhhh yeah… it turned to creamy, steep, old powder. Hmmmm – just right for steep skiing.
Courtney Phillips skiing below The Cat Ears in the upper couloir. Courtney has been skiing for two years and is obviously a very fast learner. To put it in perspective, he's still in the first pair of boots he ever bought. Damn him.
Holding Court above Fred, who is approaching the lower cliff, but having such a good time he doesn't want to stop.
There is no shortage of amazing views from almost anywhere on Lone Peak. In this photo, Courtney is skirting the lower cliff band.
The bad part about approaching Lone Peak from Coalpit #4 (Little Cottonwood Canyon) is that you have to climb up it, then drop back down the other side, then reverse this on the way back out. The good part of this is that you don’t need a car shuttle, and, you get to ski Coalpit #4 if your jellied legs can stand it.
Fred working his way down Coalpit #4 at the end of the day.
And thus endeth the north facers. They were all mighty fine.
Tomorrow: It gets under your skin.
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Wasatch BC Skiing Park & Rides
With Salt Lake City being so close and the access to the Tri-Canyons being so limited, most Wasatch backcountry skiers end up carpooling for all or part of their trip up to the trailheads. There are seven or so Park & Rides to chose from and the choice of where to meet can sometimes be more difficult than where to ski. If I hadn’t wasted so much time thinking about all of the various Park & Ride permutations, I could have been a Cardiologist.
A big factor for me is that I HATE getting my car broken into, so I avoid LCC and BCC as much as possible as they are plagued by vermin who will smash your window for the pennies in your change drawer. Cowboy Partners is nice, but you are out of luck for food, shopping or poo’ing. I like the Swamp Lot, but you have to double back to get to BCC. The 7-11 Mud Lot is central and has easy access to beer, but don’t drop your glove there.
There are so many factors that it boggles a single-celled ski mountaineering brain. Technically the Big Cottonwood Park & Ride is the best and the quaint little 3800 lot is the worst, but it all depends on where you are going.
I go for 3900th whenever possible (easy freeway access, longest carpool, nearby shopping and getting cuter by the minute) with the Swamp Lot being a close second (surrounded by houses and roads, so less theft, and central for many Sandy partners).
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