Backcountry
Conditions Report
Report from Thursday, April 18, 2024
“Fear is the mind-killer,” is the phrase from Frank Herbert’s Dune that I kept reverberating to myself on loop yesterday as I inched toward the crux section. Once I was in there I knew there’d be no going back.
I’ve done stuff like this before, but it’s been a while and also not really to this extent. This shit was burly, and my head game wasn’t fully there. It had been a long month.
That was probably the most afraid I’ve ever felt on skis.
But probably also the most alive.
We had set our sights on The Diving Board yesterday: a mega-exposed classic Utah line consisting of a 60º no-fall-zone above a 500-foot+ death cliff.
If you could make it out the other side without falling you’d be the raddest person in the Wasatch for a day.
At 4:45 a.m. on the drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon a fox scurried across the road, running up the slopes near Mt. Superior. Its eyes glistened in my headlights as I squinted to make out its shadowy figure.
A good omen, I thought.
Juan and Jeremy met me at the trailhead and we quickly set sail up the iciest skin track I’ve been on all year. Thank God I brought ski crampons.
There was a hard freeze last night and we all wondered how firm the snow would be on the Diving Board.
Too firm and we’d have to bail.
We anxiously wondered as we kept on climbing.
On the ridgeline to Superior, above 10,000 feet in elevation, I saw that same fox’s footprints next to the skin track.
Shralpy fox.
The surrounding peaks around us were metamorphising pink to orange then gold as the sun crested the horizon.
The sunrise alone was worth the early wake-up and cold start.
We made it to the top of Mt. Superior and Little Cottonwood Canyon below was quiet and seemingly devoid of life.
People just kind of stop skiing here in April.
Their loss.
From Superior, we trudged west along the ridgeline to Monte Cristo, transitioned, and then skied down to the entrance of the Heart of Darkness Couloir.
Juan and I rappelled one at a time into the pinner couloir while Jeremey stayed near the entrance to film both the rappel and the Diving Board, which was in perfect view from Heart of Darkness.
Playing with ropes, ice axes, and crampons in the mountains is always a good time.
After rappelling the crux, we downclimbed with our ice axes and began the ascent up the Diving Board: first up the apron and then along the exposed ramp before ascending the vertical crux wall to the free-hanging snowfield above the death cliff.
At first, it seemed less intimidating the closer we got to the crux.
But all that changed once we were there.
Juan led, putting in a heroic effort up the virgin snow of the insanely steep crux section. This portion was straight up and down and he was completely relying on his axes and crampons to mantle onto the snowfield above.
I watched in disbelief; I was about to have to go next.
He made it past the crux and then quickly cruised up to the summit, radioing me to follow once he stopped. Even a few small snowballs kicked off from his climb up could have proved fatal for me in the crux section. So I waited.
I inched toward the crux, almost past the point of no return, when suddenly I froze.
I went stone. Like a statue.
I knew that once I took one more step, downclimbing wouldn’t be a possibility and I’d be fully committed to reaching the summit and skiing back down over the terrifying cliff, down past the 60º crux, and to the ramp.
I thought long and hard about what I was doing.
A very long time passed as I stood shackled by fear.
I tried to envision that one turn over and over again in my mind but anxiety kept creeping in.
“What if I caught my tips there?” What if my bindings malfunctioned and I popped out?”
It was Boogey Man fear.
Jeremy radioed because he’d noticed from the opposite ridgeline that I was still standing in the same spot, not having moved after 20 minutes or so.
I communicated that I felt frozen—rigid as blue ice.
Juan chimed in, telling me there was no pressure to continue on if I wasn’t feeling the crux, but also that he had seen me ski a hundred times and that he was confident I could ski back down it with no issue.
I was stuck on the ramp—in the pool; the Diving Board proper sitting just above me, one more committing step before I would be fully in it.
But had I come all this way just to swim in the pool?
I took a few more deep breaths, tried to still my whirling mind, and placed one foot in front of the other with my axes leading each step.
I was committed now.
Making it past the crux was fairly easy—I just didn’t look down. Not even a little bit. Not even once.
I mantled onto the hanging snowfield and delicately walked up to the summit where Juan was waiting with a grin.
The views up there were immaculate but we didn’t spend much time taking them in.
It was time for the fun part.
Juan went first, carrying such speed and ferocity on his snowboard that I could hardly watch him descend.
I waited for the reassuring holler at the bottom which told me that he made it.
I heard it. His stoke echoed through the mountains.
Then it was my turn.
I made approximately four turns on the hanging snowfield that is the Diving Board and then sideslipped the rest of the way to the crux.
I skied this section like a grandpa honestly.
But it worked.
At the crux, an unfathomably large cliff taunting me below, I cut over to the rocky cliffs, made it to the ramp, and then made a turn—the first one in what felt like forever.
Once on the safety of the ramp an overwhelming wave of relief washed over me and I opened up my turns—actually making turns now—and skied fast and easily.
I had made it.
The rest were just victory turns.
I swiped left and right down the ramp, to the apron, all the way down in the basin to where Juan was waiting.
He yelled out in pure euphoria:
“We didn’t die!”
We hugged and looked back at the line, reveling at the feat we had just accomplished.
Juan flowed the damn thing, making it look easy.
I just didn’t fall and I was happy about that.
That was the most exposure I’ve ever skied above.
We walked back to the Mt. Superior summit high as kites.
By now it was 2:30 and we had overstayed our welcome a little bit. The snow was wet, heavy, and getting spooky.
Jeremy, Juan, and I skied down Superior one at a time in rough snow, but it was still a wickedly fun ride down.
A classic is still a classic.
*Sign of Instability* – Near the bottom on a convex roller, we remotely triggered a fairly large wet slab that certainly could have messed up someone’s day had they been caught in it. It ran far, long, and over cliffs.
We weren’t expecting that. That was our one big mistake of the day. Luckily it was remotely triggered.
The bottom apron of Superior held splashy slush that skied superbly.
A relaxing contrast to the Diving Board, and well-earned.
It was beach weather on the road as we stuck our thumbs out for a lift back to Alta.
Back at the car we debriefed and shared the stoke once more.
I’m not sure I’ll do the Diving Board again soon, but I do definitely want to ski more lines with exposure like that.
Something about the thrill of being on the edge of your ability level really silences all the bullshit in your life, if only for a few moments, and energizes your being in a way that words don’t do too good at describing.
But I can tell you that it feels good. It feels like you are brimming with life. It feels like your heart opens and reveals that under the superficial, trivial affairs and occupancies of daily life, there is something more there, something that is always there. Something deeper. Something divine.
I think that most clichés are true because they have to come from somewhere. But there is one I’ve found to be especially true, told to me by my friend, boss, and mentor Miles Clark:
Where your comfort zone ends, life begins.
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