Report from January 2, 2023

Yesterday morning we got out early-ish and started digging up a long flat trail into a zone I’d never been to in the Wasatch Mountains, UT.

The stats are kinda fun:

4,700-vertical-feet
5 hours & 20 minutes to the top
7 hours & 40 minutes round trip
9.8 miles round trip

It’s real simple how I got here:

Saw a line while hiking up Superior – detoured and skied it
Saw a line from the top of that line then went and skied it
Saw this line from the top of that line and skied it
Now, I’ve seen some more lines I’d like to ski…

I feel like I’m finally seeing the Wasatch for the first time and I’m impressed.

Granted, you likely couldn’t ski many of these zones I’ve been in in anything but LOW avalanche danger…

There isn’t much snow in the Wasatch right now, but if you are willing to scratch n’ sniff, there’s a world of opportunity out there.

Wind lines, coyote tracks, and smog. image: snowbrains

Hiking by 8am.

Finally in the ‘alpine’ after 3 hours of hiking.

Switched to booting up in ascent plates after 4 hours.

The Secret Weapon putting it in. image: snowbrains

Tight chute to wide open fields of glory to tight chute to ridgeline.

Finally on top of the ridge after 5 hours & 20 minutes of hiking.

You gotta really want it to get it right now…

On the hike up the recrystallized snow felt terrific.

2-6″ deep delicious Alaskan Velvet.

It also felt like it was gonna sluff like a freight train.

I envisioned every grain of recrystallized pow I touched training together making huge, life-threatening sluffs chomping at my heels as I screamed down the mountain in fear.

After taking in the view and imbibing some dihydrogen monoxide, I dropped in.

I’d decided I was gonna ski like an a**hole and try to beat my sluff down the chute.

Full throttle.

I held confidence in the snow quality and I knew if I got going too fast in the upper chute, I could likely point it and dump my speed in the fields of glory before committing to the 2nd chute.

The snow in the upper chute was good.

I was just able to keep my speed under control in the upper chute.

I blasted out into the fields of glory where the snow was exquisite and was easily able to speed check and get ready for chute #2.

Chute #2 held funkier snow with the worst snow being in the tightest choke, of course…

I kept the speed up as high as I could as I chopped turns into the crusty snow culminating in a short straightline to get through the 2′ wide choke at the bottom of the chute.

A big line like this ending in a tight chute with a 2′ wide choke?

Yeah, you’re only gonna have the confidence to ski a line like this on a very LOW avalanche danger day – which yesterday was, thankfully.

Miles ripping down the upper chute. image: snowbrains

I pointed it through the 2′ wide choke, battled the firm crust below it, and dumped my speed down and to the right where the snow turned back into near surface facet goodness.

From there it was another 90 seconds of skiing down to the flats.

I spun to a stop, gasping for breath, and said “That was sick!”

Then, “So tired…”

1,500-vertical-feel of Hell-Yeah!

I watched as Martin & Dr. Joe shredded down an alternate chute on the top then down through the same 2nd chute as me.

They were pumped.

We celebrated with hugs and pole taps and “That was epic!s.”

We did some fun meadow skipping, rock dodging, and river gorge traversing before committing to the bushwhack that would be our reality for the next 30 minutes.

It was a touch mellower than the bushwhack ski on Twin Peaks 2 days prior so it didn’t hurt my feelings too much.

Regardless, it must have been bad bushwhacking because Martin called me with bushwhack PTSD today…

I was happy to see our shoes.

Shoes on, down the trail, conversation high.

7 hours & 41 minutes after leaving the cars, we were back safe and sound.

We exchanged hugs and gratitude and scattered in 3 directions.

I headed home and ate:

Protein, creatine, l-glutamine, banana, peanut butter, blueberry, raspberry, almond milk smoothie
Full apres tea dinner
Split burger, truffle fries, and tomato brisk with Miss Erica at a nice restaurant
Margarita
Chocolate cookie dough ice cream
Brownie

I writing this from a plane headed to British Columbia for our annual BC hut trip there.

As I gaze out the window I realize that I’ve never seen the Northern Rockies of the USA look so dry this time of year.

Fingers crossed for good snow and great times with some old friends trapped in a hut in the middle of nowhere for a week in some of the best ski terrain in the world.

Notes:

We did not see any signs of snowpack instability on this day
The bushwhacking is treacherous due to the low snow in the lower elevations
All this great skiing is due to Near Surface Faceting – once we get new snow on top of this avalanche danger is going to be a big problem for a long time
We only skied terrain this exposed because the avalanche danger is LOW and we were confident in the unsupported slopes we skied not producing avalanches

Thanks, Utah!