Report from March 16, 2023

We did the Salt Lake City thing today:

Wake up early and started skinning with headlamps in the dark

Waking up early hurt.

Hiking up was critically cold.

Once the sun first hit, it all felt worth it.

I kinda get it now.

I especially got it once we started driving down the canyon at 10am and the traffic was clogged from the top of the canyon to a few miles into SLC…

On our hike up, the northeast wind was brutal.

I was hiking in four layers of clothes, my helmet, and goggles, and I was still cold.

The snow was weird.

Wetter and heavier than normal and very wind pressed.

About 14″ of new snow had fallen, but it was clearly gonna ski more like 4″.

As we hit the ridge and felt the wind, we decided we wouldn’t be going to the top of 11,000′ Mt. Superior.

The avalanche danger felt bizarre with all the new snow and wind.

As we reached the first point where we could see Superior, we saw a large avalanche that had gone from top to bottom down the south face of Superior.

It was apparently skier-triggered.

We evaluated what we could ski and decided on Little Superior.

After testing an evaluation, we decided to drop.

The snow was wind-pressed, creamy, not deep, and fast.

We ripped down our favorite ridgey spine-line thinger, and the skiing was hot.

We were pumped at the bottom, and it was only 9am.

Our walk back to the car was jovial and free.

It felt great to have already been done skiing and to have skied one of our favorite lines to boot.

It especially felt great to be driving in the opposite direction as the excessively long red snake (traffic) coming up the canyon for the first post-storm sunny day.

Thanks, Utah.