1/24/04
It's only been well over six months since I posted anything here. Chalk it up to being lame, being busy, kids getting older, camera issues, insufficient beer, whatever. Anyway - thought a good way to break out of the funk might be to cruise to Utah with Matt and check out his old haunts around Alta. It's a trip that we've been talking about for years. 'Bout time we made it happen.
Arrived in Salt Lake Friday evening and cruised with Matt and Glenda to their place in the Canyon. Even in the moonlight - continuous geeking taking place at the terrain on the drive up the canyon with Matt pointing out some of the meatier lines such as the Y Couloir, the Y-not, Monte Cristo, Tanners, and Superior. What a giant place!
| Looking out of the window at Matt & Glenda's place at Little Superior - on the east shoulder of Superior and the run-out of the Hellgate slide path. |
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The Salt Lake area and the Wasatch had been sitting under the big blue "H" for about 3 weeks, effectively turning over 25 feet of new snow that fell prior to and over the holidays to hard-pack. Oh well - perfect go-anywhere backcountry conditions. We cruised out early Saturday morning to start our tour.
| A bit of mandatory altimeter dweebery at the trailhead. |
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We followed a heavily-traveled skin highway up into the Red Pine drainage. Pretty quickly we were high enough to be able to see the ribbon of road and many of the big slide paths on the opposite aspect of the canyon.
| You know, Matt pointed out so many named slide paths and awesome ski lines in Little Cottonwood Canyon that I can't possibly remember the names of all of them. Here's a couple - if Matt lends a hand I'll name 'em for ya. |
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| The view down Little Cottonwood Canyon to the Salt Lake valley - still stuck in a foggy inversion. |
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The views just became more and more outstanding the higher we climbed. Ultimately, for a Wasatch newbie, this was an awesome tour to get an impression of the layout of the place.
| The view cross-canyon and Tanner's slide path - a classic line in Little Cottonwood canyon. Entrance at the notch top left - ski thru the "Butterfly" and then down to the road below. |
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There was a surprising amount of perfectly skiable powder snow in the trees (much of it hissy recrystralized and surface hoar), but as we continued to ascend the snow firmed up. Above Red Pine Lake we got into more and more alpine terrain and the place really revealed itself.
| Matt at the bottom of the Red Pine basin - near Red Pine Lake. Our descent on the way back more or less followed the shadow line down the big bowl in the background. |
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| Matt making his way up the shoulder of "Unnamed peak 10,897" (elevation) with Thunder Mountain (and more terrain than you can shake a stick at) behind him. |
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We followed a party of three that we'd been sort of tag-teaming all morning up a set of steps that had been kicked into a steep pitch to a high saddle. At the top the symmetrical cone of the Pfeifferhorn came into view.
| Party of 3 ahead of us making their way up the boot-pack. |
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"Dammit, Jim! I'm a 'Utahhhhhhn' not an Oregonian!!"
- or - "I told you!" |
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| Matt making his way up the steep boot pack section. |
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| Looking across Dry Creek Canyon toward Mt Timpanogos (left) and Box Elder Peak (right). |
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We'd commented on the other party's bringing along ice axes and other tools as along for the final pitch. Turns out we should have brought them along as well. The final ramp to the summit was firm and more exposed than I thought - not a place to arrest a slide-for-life with a ski pole - so we decided to bail on the summit.
| Matt standing on the saddle with the Pfeifferhorn looming large in the background. |
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Another party joined us on the high saddle below the Pfeifferhorn after climbing the steep bowl straight up from Maybird. We all watched as a solo climber flew up the North face of the mountain with sliding tools on his back.
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Matt pointing out more terrain than I could possibly absorb in one visit!
Looking across Maybird Gulch (I think). |
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Stood around long enough to start getting cold and started to make our way back on skis to the top of the descent into Red Pine. The top of the pitch featured some mixed and wind-worked snow, but as we descended the snow got sweeter and sweeter. It was impossible to me that we were three weeks out from the last snowstorm and still able to find skiable untracked powder, but again, this was not the Cascades - where 3 days out from a storm and the new snow is often settled down to a fairly firm layer.
| Turns begin here - turns end at the bottom of the canyon upper left. |
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As we continued down and entered into mixed trees and wind-protected open areas, the snow conditions continued to improve. Matt had a chute that he'd never skiied in mind for our exit to the road. Sure enough he found the tree hid gotten a fix on at the top of the shot and we made our way in: Matt in fine style as usual, and myself through a bit of unplanned chute entrance acrobatics . . .
| Matt getting a fix on Tanner's just before getting into the chute. |
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| Tanner's Slide Path in full. |
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The snow in the chute had avalanched leaving a firm bed surface for skiing which became increasingly riddled with debris and chunks of all shapes and sizes as we descended. I kinda feel like I skiied/managed the top two-thirds of that chute and the bottom third of it sort of spit me out into the vegetables. I was pretty gassed by the end of the tour.
| Matt rippin it in the chute. You can get an impression of steepness of this shot if you get a bead on the traffic on the canyon road way below. |
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Matt found an excellent creek crossing & we skinned our way back to the road. Within the passing of 10 seconds and two rigs Matt's thumb had earned us a ride back up the canyon to our original trailhead.
Of course no trip to the Wasatch could be complete without a requisite dump & I gained a comprehensive understanding of "push-button weather" the next day. Starting early Sunday morning we proceeded to receive nearly 2 feet of fresh Wasatch Powder & I spent the next 2 days playing follow-the-leader as Matt & Glenda showed me around some of Alta & Snowbird's most out-of-the-way lines.
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Read carefully... Translated:
"Don't go outside while we're doing avalanche control work out here" - or - "Huge dump last night - Conditions are going to be sick! Have a nice day." |
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