After a great day at Snowbasin the day before with Scott and Matt, Mike decided to show me around the backcountry outside of Ogden. So we jammed all of our junk into his rig and rolled to the start of events at just over 8000 feet. Now . . . starting tours at above 8K is not my usual practice in the Northwest - spending all day between 8000 and 10,000 feet had me sapped by the end of the day . . . along with ~6K vert we tromped up and down. Payback for the Mountain Lake climb? . . . !!
| The vantage after starting the march |
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We started skinning at about 9am and quickly reached a ridgetop over a creek basin. From here we took laps one and two. The snow over here was yummy bottomless on top with bits of bottom palpable as we descended.
| Mike diggin in on lap #1 - some of our first turns together since the '80's!! |
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| Mike inspecting an old long-forgotten mining claim . . . looking for buried layers on the first skin back up. |
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| Mike working the dinged-up Pocket Rockets for all they're worth! |
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| Lap #2 - down thru a nicely filled-in keyhole tree shot. |
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| Some more nice turns on lap #2. |
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| Continuing the boogie-on-down |
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After lap 2 we made a long traverse under the SW aspect of a prominent peak and then around to a ridge just NE of it. The snow over here was a bit more wind-loaded so we trundled a cornice to see what would move. Nothing significant . . . just some surface sluff. As before - 2 laps into this basin with a lunch interlude for good humor. There'd been off and on poor vis due to a capricious fog layer and had apparently been snowing more than we were aware. By mid-day we were both surprisingly wet. By the end of the day this would become a borderline "shoulder shiver" sort of chill.
| Traversing out of the first shot towards the next ridge |
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| Mike walking above our next shot |
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After reaching the ridge once more we had a bead on the main chute coming down off of this peak. From the top Mike threw in a couple of ski cuts - things were stable so we partook of the goods. Mike skiied the chute proper . . . I went skiers right and skiied a semi- treed shot off the nose of the chute. Good stuff.
| Mike pulls up on the trudge up to the main chute we skiied (the obvious shot directly behind him) |
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Here began the full-on "touring" portion of the tour. We traversed out of this basin to skiers right and gained the next ridge. What was to follow was supposed to be a series of up and outs over a couple of drainages with some good steep pokes intervening. Unfortunately the milk bottle conditions followed us pretty much wherever we went and each venture below 8000 feet was punished with progressively dense versions of mashed potatoes. The best way to ski this stuff is to ski hard and slap it around a bit . . . As the day progressed with fatigue & slop I'm pretty sure I was the one being slapped.
By the time we crossed the final ridge and started down we were getting very intimate with the thick vegetables, including several "you've got to be kidding me" side-hill bushwhacks. Mike finally found the road that would be our egress route by taking a big digger and finding it head-dab style!
When we made it back to the car I was pretty much spent and we were both chilled to the
core. Unfortunately Mike's truck's heat worked only marginally so when we finally stopped
at a store for bit, it was tough for us to leave!
On to Cardiff