Uintas video TR 12-17-04

A very mini-mini in the Uintas today. Gramps and I sledded in 20 miles at 50+mph under what we thought would be clearing skies and a great day. Looked like the pow was actually going to be fluffy and nice. We were quite excited about the possibility to ski pow after a week of crunchy mank in the Wasatch and Bear River ranges.

Well, the lenticulars rolled in, the wind started to blast out of the north, the cloud bank dropped, and stuff was sketchy. We toured around looking for sheltered slopes which simply don't exist along Mirror Lake Highway. It's either 40-50 degree wide open, bare slopes, or flat trees.

We belayed-ski cut some stuff (38-40 degrees) that immediately thumped, cracked, and wanted to slide. Dug a pit on the same slope, it broke after two light taps of the wrist. 4" of depth hoar and a windslab on top of it helped that out. Thumping and cracking was happening on every aspect we skinned across. We ended up skiing very little and called it a day for safety reasons.

I guess every day in the Uintas can't be perfect like the first two. Still had fun though.

Video is 5mb and 2.5 minutes.

Uintas 12-17-04 Video

Gramps coiling the rope in the wind.
http://fritzrips.com/v-web/gallery/a...ber04/rope.jpg

One of the belays for ski cutting.
http://fritzrips.com/v-web/gallery/a...er04/belay.jpg

sweet mang, sweet.

Did you come in from Kamas or Evanston? I'm buying a place in Kamas. I guess I'll need to buy a snowmobile too, and a truck so I'll fit in. Not that anyone cares about that though....

Back to the topic at hand...was gramps skiing with two poles in each hand? or am I just seeing things?

Are you going to put together a year end video with blips from the entire season? That'd be cool to watch after a BBQ.

Nice P-stash. Congrats on that. PM me with details. Yeah, now you HAVE to get a sled.

I am fastly realizing that the Uintas are a difficult place to get things done. It's just sooooo unforgiving of mistakes.

As far as the avy forecast goes for the area, Craig Gordon was dead nuts accurate. Stubborn slabs, 'scary moderate' danger, but shit wanted to rip huge if it did.

We came in from the Evanston side. Today was a bit frustrating, but we did accomplish something worth while, we scoped TONS of new terrain for when it is safe.

Sure, year end vid would be fun. Hopefull Rainier, Middle Teton, etc will be on it too.

The Gramps two pole illusion is due to 30fps film speed being 'slowmowed'.

You guys are super EXTREMO!

excellent stuff...

Sweet video Trackhead. It was a good day even with the spotty conditions.
That picture of me with the rope is a little cheesy though. :o

It's very cool to see you make judgement calls to be safe, after all of your work to get there. :cool: