Tag: wasatch
My Best Powder Day of the Year
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 […]
Top 10 in 10 – South Face of Mt. Superior
#10 – The South Face of Mt. Superior 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 […]
Top 10 in 10 – Little Pine Couloir
#9 – Little Pine Couloir 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 […]
Top 10 in 10 – Lisa Falls
#8 – Lisa Falls 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 […]
Top 10 in 10 – The Hypodermic Needle
#7 – The Hypodermic Needle (aka The Needle) 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 […]
Top 10 in 10 – NE Couloir of Lone Peak
#6 – NE Couloir of Lone Peak. 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 […]
Top 10 in 10 – Coalpit
#5 – Coalpit Headwall The Coalpit Headwall has a lot going for it – it is north facing (softest of the soft), huge, has a fairly moderate angle, has tons of variety and more often than not, some portion of it will have good skiing. There are many ways to approach it, all involving pain […]
Top 10 in 10 – NW Couloir of the Pfiefferhorn
#4 – NW Couloir of the Pfiefferhorn The Pfiefferhorn is the Wasatch’s version of Switzerland’s famous Matterhorn peak. Like the Matterhorn, the Pfieff is triangular, sharp, jagged and can be seen from all around the mountain range. In a splendid act of geological creation, it has a splitter couloir that runs right from the summit all […]
Top 10 in 10 – Stairs Gulch
#3 – Stairs Gulch Although Stairs Gulch in Big Cottonwood Canyon is a major classic, I’ve only skied it a few times in the last fifteen years as it is so big, dark and scary. Stairs has a long history of fatalities and I’d suspect that far more accidents have happened there than any other couloir in […]
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 […]
Continue Reading