Report from January 26, 2023

5 a.m.

Pitch black and foggy…

The forecast was for sun but I couldn’t see a single star.

11,045′ Mt. Superior, UT – “Suicide Chute” 

Details

• Summit (actually a notch):  9,900′
• Car:  8,400′
• Vertical From Car:  1,500′
• Vertical skied:  1,500′
• Max Pitch:  45º 
• Avg Pitch: 40º 
• Aspect:  East
• Distance:  1.5-miles round trip
• Time From Car to Top:  1 hour & 33 minutes
• Car to Car Time: 2 hours & 8 minutes
• Recommended Equipment:  Crampons, Ice Axe, Ascent Plates (Verts)

Empty roads.

I used my car to hammer in a parking spot in the full-to-the-gills pull out.

I wore my headlamp and never ignited it.

Little Cottonwood Canyon is industrial at 6:30 a.m.

Bombs, cars, snow plows, tractors, and all of it together composing a cacophonic din echoing across the night.

I drifted down to the starting point and put my skins on.

The lights of the valley bounced off hill and dale and cloud illuminating my path.

I felt drunk.

I could see, but just enough.

My skin track was erratic and nonconforming.

I felt lost in a zone I’d traversed 12 times already this season.

Up higher I found a groove.

I looked back to confirm I was the only one.

30 minutes of trail-breaking put me at the mouth of the chute.

I hardly recognized it.

I only ski this chute very early and very late in the season—often when you can’t even ski the apron for lack of snow.

Today it all connected and the chute was fat.

I switched to crampons and ascent plates and started up.

The new snow was about 4″ deep and the bootpack had been obliterated by the storm.

I couldn’t help looking back to see if anyone was following.

No one.

Nothing.

Silence.

BOOM!

Onward.

The bootpacking wasn’t bad and the ascent plates worked charmingly.

I topped out just after 8 a.m. cloaked in fog bank and ethereal light.

I lingered not.

I could see sunlight slapping the peaks downcanyon and I had no illusions of those photons encountering me.

I clicked in, strapped my backpack tight, and waited for the latest fog whisp to finish its lethargic ascent of the chute.

“3, 2, 1, drop!”

The top was thin and I felt every undulation of the firm, skied out snow beneath.

3 turns in it turned to velvet.

Heels down, toes up.

The snow was best and deepest on the right side where wind and sluff off the cliff walls had deposited kind curtains of slow-churned cream.

After the initial choke, I ended up surfing the rest of the chute like a righthand wave.

Bottom turn… cutback!

Bottom turnnnnn… crack!

It took about six lip-smacks to get to the final section of the chute where the snow curtains ceased and I was relegated to more normal skiing behaviors.

I popped outta the chute and into the apron with a gliding smile.

So often I arrive in this location gasping and bent.

Today, I was breathing through my nose, laughing slightly.

As I finished the apron I felt the weight of the Mt. Superior crowd.

One… two… five… nine… thirteen… eighteen…

They came down like goggle-less lemmings with eyelashes frosted.

Reports of windslabs, thick fog, and zero visibility off the top flowed from their lips.

I’d seen their headlamps on the ridge before dawn and their insanity made mine seem less acute.

We grinned and chatted and nodded.

We all knew why we were there and how we were similar.

As I drove downhill, stopped traffic wound from Alta past the mouth of the canyon and into Sandy.

I shifted from second gear to D as I hit the flats, watched the needle pass 50, and bathed in the open speed.

Done skiing at 9 a.m. and heading in the nonpopular direction. 

“To Be Young“ by Ryan Adams came on the radio.

My eyes glistened as the needle passed 60 and thoughts of hot lemon tea curled off my mind.