As Suds Would Say...

Another day in paradise!

They need any Geologists out there?

of course they do.

MC2.... I'm pretty sure UDOT could use one. If not, top of the lodge could probably use a server!
Excuse me while we figure some stuff out.. Pics to follow

I got a text from my buddy Chris asking if I wanted to head out today. Of course. But some of the guys I work with wanted to build a jump and do some filming. Decisions, decisions.

I had initially decided on doing some jumping and getting spinverted, but Chris called me as I was getting ready, said he was headed out to wolverine cirque solo but forgot his beacon. He was on his was back and I said I would join him. It was a good decision.

We went up the supreme lift to get out to easy-access back country. Initially we weren't going to drop into Rocky Point (back country between Alta and Brighton)  because we thought it would be too sunbaked. Regardless we decided to poke out heads into the north-facing entrance off of sunset peak. Another good decision.







Usually there is a boot ladder up to the saddle that takes you back to alta, but no one had set it yet since our last storm cycle. Due to the steepness, it's usually easier to boot up to Patsy/Wolvie. But sticky snow sent us up on skins. That also worked well.

Chris getting the skins on



Spooned tracks down Sunset, viewed from the skin to Wolvie


Originally we were going to ski the Scythe, but the couple ahead of us took the virgin tracks.


"How long are your skis?" Asked Chris
"179s" I replied.
"Good, we're working with the same stuff.

We headed to a chute called Tips n Tails. It's not much wider than our skis, is about a 55 degree pitch, and required jump turns down a couple hundred vertical feet.

Chris dropped first.




And then I followed.


The bottom was a bit sunbaked. Chris was able to make some nice surfy turns down to the basin. I, however, had so lay down some powder 11s. I guess that's the difference between 105mm with tip rocker and a traditionally cambered 90mm ski (a good carpenter always blames his tools, right?)

We continued down to twin lakes pass where we found some chalky snow and good turns.
(That's his hair, not a cowboy hat. YeHawww!)


We got to the bottom of the basin, hung out a bit, and headed up the skin track to the summer road.

I wanted to go to the Patsy bowl, Chris wasn't really feeling it. We went anyways. More wet, heavy snow until we got to
The north facing trees which held a bit of protected, albeit heavy snow.



On the way up...


Turns were heavy up top leading us to some chalkier tree skiing

That took us back to the summer road where we made some sticky, slow turns


And then we found a badger to heckle...


Finally, I got back to Goldminer's Daughter to have a few beers on the deck, eat
A burger, and go to work.


More random pics from previous adventures will be added.

Here's a couple shots from last week.
I had the whole next day off (which is pretty rare for me), and I had just got my new Magicshine headlamp in the mail, so I went for a solo skin up to the high traverse and skied High Rustler. I brought along the camera, and got a few nice shots. I'll include the link for a high-res shot because the forum downgrades the quality quite a bit. They all came out a touchhh too soft. Better luck next time.


http://flic.kr/p/e6G7Hw


My favorite and current desktop background. I want to go back when there is no moon as opposed to the full moon to get some more starts (or maybe star trails) and comp the two together.

http://flic.kr/p/e6G7cQ








I can't believe I'm almost out of here already. On Tuesday I head down to Moab to take a wilderness first responder course, do some night riding, and hopefully float down the Green river for five days. After that, it's off to Flagstaff, LA to visit my best friend from elementary school, up to the Kings river in California for some whitewater rafting, up to Tahoe to meet Andi, maybe a week in Squamish, BC, and finally home for lots of work, rafting, and hopefully a Tuckerman trip with some East Coast buddies and a couple I met waiting tables out here.

I know the season isn't totally over yet, but I have to say I was expecting a bit more snow. I've had two of the best ski days of my life out here, but I was expecting it to be a bit more consistent. We're at 365" for the year compared to a yearly average of 500". Either way, I'll absolutely be out next year. For now, I have two more tours I want to bag (maybe in one?!) and I need to figure out how to pack all this stuff into my civic and still be able to access me skiing, camping, and biking gear for the next five weeks.



 

edit: there we go...

Nice...
living the dream !!!!

Nice badger too

Good to hear from you tBatt. I'm going to read this when the pics are in. :)

Bonus points for trying to post from your phone. The forum ain't exactly post from phone friendly. Especially pics. (That may change this summer.)

Very nice, maybe next year you we can pull some turns together. Excellent pics, great terrain. Not sure I would have liked that chute but everything else -

Finally got to read this.

Great storytelling. This is TR of the year material.  T.. those are some fantastic pics, and what a sick line.

You must be getting even better.

Tell me true... staring down 55 degrees in a ski width chute, under those conditions... what are you thinking? Feeling?

Great stuff, still skeptical of Utah though. Hit Mammoth on the way to Tahoe, and go where the snow is good. The touring in the Sierra is straight up crazy. Pretty cool adventure you're having. Wish I knew you were getting your WFR, I have to recert and can always use another excuse to go somewhere!  

Harvey44 wrote

Tell me true... staring down 55 degrees in a ski width chute, under those conditions... what are you thinking? Feeling?

"Don't [screw] up."

I'll add more to the TR with a few pics of Days fork and Toledo Bowl from a few weeks ago.

Done with work now, and looking like last day here will be a deeeep powder day. I hope so. I'll try to get some shots of that, too.

nice!  thx for sharing.

FFFFFFFF.
I Just spent about an hour writing up another TR, and then I closed the tab.
Here we go again.....


3/37/13 - Days Fork and Toledo Bowl.

The forecast called for some sun coming out in the afternoon. Ari, Sarah, and I headed up and over Flagstaff from LCC into BCC to get some snow on the shaded, Northern side. (Sarah is from Binghamton and grew up skiing Greek Peak and Ari lived in Keene Valley for the last couple years). I couldn't find my sunglasses and forgot to put on sunblock. It's ok, though, because  it was cloudy when we left the trailhead, Right? Wrong. Sunburn. OUCHHHHH.

Ari and Sarah at the trailhead.



No action shots coming down the North Face of days, but our tracks are in here. There was about a foot of nice, creamy, new snow.



For our second run, We came down a more easterly facing gully which had been untouched. The snow was a lot heavier than the first run, considering our slight change in aspect.

Ari


Back up the North Face, and we headed over to Toledo Bowl.
The sun started poking through the clouds and made for some awesome lighting.



Looking toward Snowbird and down the South Side of LCC


Cardiac Ridge, coming due North off of Superior. Looks Purdyyyy (something I really wanted to ski this year, but never got to! )


Ari and Sarah up top, the Sun was really coming in strong now.


Sarah coming down Toledo. The skiers right side of the gully had been protected much better from the sun, and skied really well.



Ari's Turn




The sun really heated up the snow down low and was extremely grabby. All three of us had augured in at least once and went for a tumble. When I did, a huge roller ball (red flag warning for wet slab instabilities) cruised passed me. It was time to get out. Quickly.

We did, and all headed in for work.

(I'm posting this now so I don't lose my work again. To be continued...)

4/6/13 - Tour De Alta

Chris and I headed out again to do essentially the same tour as a few days prior, with slight variation.
We traversed a bit farther out into Sunset and got a much longer run. The new, heavy snow made a bit of a slab on top of the old chalky snow, but it still skied well.

We put the skins on and headed up to the top of Mt. Tuscarora to ski Seagul Chute, one that Chris nor I had skied before.
There were a few tracks down it already, but it skied really well. It's a very long chute that starts narrow, and opens up to an apron then to a large pow field. Turns on turns on turns!



At the bottom, we got the skins on and headed up The Bowl of 1000 Turns towards the top of Wolverine Cirque. When we did, clouds and snow rolled in. Visibility went down the crapper (not many photos of the rest of this trip)

We got to the top of Wolverine Cirque and I finally got to ski the Scythe. Chris had done it before, so he dropped in first, side slipping it to uncover and point out the rocks. He skied to a safe zone where I met him, and we carried on our way.

The new snow that was falling in addition to the couple inches of new snow from the day prior left 5" of creamy pow for us to enjoy. Although, it would have been slightly more enjoyable if we could see where we were going!

We skied to the bottom of the basin, keeping eachother in sight and making sure not to ski into some burried, shark-fin rocks.

We got to the bottom of Twin Lakes Pass, where things started to clear up. We put the skins on again, headed up and out to the North-facing trees of Patsy Marley where we met up with the Summer road and skied back to the GMD.

I showered, ate dinner, watched Avatar, took a nap, and got ready for Part Two.

There is only one week left until the official end of the season, but many people are leaving early. Brent and Zaine decided to drive to Wyoming and pick up some fireworks for a last Horah. About $1500 worth of fireworks, to be a bit more precise.

6 of us met in on the Deck at 8pm to start heading up to the Taint, and area between Ballroom and Wildcat. A bunch of others trickled in later once they started to get off of work.

Let the party Begin!
Roman Candle Wars


Fireworks from Wildcat








A handful of people went back down to the base, and the rest of us headed to the top of Wildcat.


After hanging out for a while, we lit up the rest of the big sparklers and took a run down the Wildcat Face, with no light to guide them other than the sparklers.



And away to the base of the mountain....


Off to Bed.

 4/7/13 - Bouldering, base of LCC

Tuesday is my last day here (class starts at 7:45 AM Wednesday), but it's supposed to be a pow day tomorrow, so I started doing laundry and packing today. As I was bringing laundry down the hall, I ran into Matt and Aaron getting their climbing gear together. I asked where they were headed, and they said off to the base of the canyon to go bouldering. Sounds better than laundry to me. However, it's been a while since I did any sort of rock climbing, so I brought my camera for an excuse not to climb

Not a whole lot of variety in shots..

Mapping out the V4+ problem


Matt


Aaron


Sarah


Hopefully some (lots of!) snow tomorrow. I'm off to bed.

Very nice last horrah!
Looks like a great time, what are the plans for hte summer. Oh to be young again...

Lots of camping, driving, and mountain biking in the next 5 weeks or so. Once I get home, probably a working in a hotel, guiding on the Hudson, helping my sister in the photo studio, and that's about it. Try to fit in some kayaking and biking when I can. Come fall, trying to get to Chile with MC2, not sure if I'm going to stay there for 10 days or a month, though. I have to talk to a few friends who are going to be down there and see what their plans are like and availability to travel.

tBatt wrote

Lots of camping, driving, and mountain biking in the next 5 weeks or so. Once I get home, probably a working in a hotel, guiding on the Hudson, helping my sister in the photo studio, and that's about it. Try to fit in some kayaking and biking when I can. Come fall, trying to get to Chile with MC2, not sure if I'm going to stay there for 10 days or a month, though. I have to talk to a few friends who are going to be down there and see what their plans are like and availability to travel.

Sounds a lot like my summer, camping and hiking in the high peaks, canoeing, and a lot of road biking, unfortunately I have to work 5 days a week... Have fun over the summer.

Bravo!!!

Well, we didn't get as much snow as I was hoping for but I had a few good runs before packing up and heading out. The last night there was lots of fun with the GMD crew.

I'm down in Moab now, taking my WFR and camping up at the Sabd Flats area. We've had weather all over the map. Night one had 40mph wind gusts, 25 degrees, and some on and off snow showers. Night two was cool, calm and clear. Two nights ago the wind was crazy fast, tore up a classmates brand new tent and loaded mine with sand.



We rode half the slick rock trail a few nights ago and due to two broken chains came out under headlamps.

The next day, a classmate who lives in Moab took a handful of us up the Negro Bill canyon to what I believe is the largest arch in Moab. It wasn't a huge, freestanding arch coming up from the middle of the desert, but it was still pretty cool.

Lots of shenanigans with the WFR crew in the past few nights. We had a night session class so everyone went out to dinner together. Last night we went out into the sand flats for a simulated rescue and everyone went to the Moab brewery afterward.

Today is our day off and it was cold, gray, windy, rainy, some hail, the works. I was going to go for a tour in the LaSal Mountains with a classmate and go for a bikeride afterward, but I've done lots of skiing and biking, and have never been canyoneering nor rappeled off of an arch. So I decided against all the above and I'm sitting in the library "studying".

Five more days of class left, three days of more shenanigans and adventure, then it's five days of floating down the green river in a canoe and heading back up to Moab via a jet boat up the Colorado river. YOMO - You only Moab once. Or... Until I come back. This place is pretty rad.

*photos pending one I get on a real computer again