Wasatch Conditions 10-11

[Trackhead]

A few texts from Alta: "Boiler Plate"..."Ice Skating Rink"...."I'm heading to Moab"..."First the Pats lose, then Alta turns into an ice skating rink. I'm over this month"

Ha! I'm going to St. George and Palm Springs for a week of pedaling, starting tomorrow. Perfect timing I guess.

[sfotex]

Close call from an Avy down in Santaquin yesterday:

http://www.utahclimbers.com/phpBB3/v...p=41593#p41593

[jeri534]

anyone have a suggestion on a backcountry touring specific shop around the SLC area? Looking to get another set of skins for my splitboard and get a tailclip installed on them....

Thanks

[ectreeskier11]

i'd check out wasatch touring up on like 1st south and 4th or so east, haven't honestly been in there but i hear it's a good spot. also black diamond headquarters has a shop down there that might be able to get you set up.

[jeri534]

thanks ill check em out.

[powski3]

Wasatch Touring is 1st South and 7th East, just to clarify, but I'm sure you woulda figured that out.

[Johnny Deep]

Drove up to the Bird, nothing open, kept going to Alta. Pulled into the parking lot, saw lift closed, looked at the ugly seen up Alf's and promptly drove home...looks pretty bad is all I can say. Windy and iced from top to bottom. Some pretty ugly slides coming off Rus lookers right, also some shit off up above the 'Ho...Looked like a large tree or down to the ground below the rocks above the cat on Rus. Superior had a pretty large wet slide also.

It was a beautiful day. When was the last time you skied blue 'snow' at Alta?

It was definitely boiler plate, but in a friendly New England sort of way. At least it was windy. Pooled grapple was nice and was white so you could stay on track with it. On a ten scale I gave it a 2.5, the grapple zone were maybe a 4. High-T never opened, along with damn near everything else.

The Bird looked grim.

[lionelhutz]

It was a beautiful day. When was the last time you skied blue 'snow' at Alta?

It was definitely boiler plate, but in a friendly New England sort of way. At least it was windy. Pooled grapple was nice and was white so you could stay on track with it. On a ten scale I gave it a 2.5, the grapple zone were maybe a 4. High-T never opened, along with damn near everything else.

The Bird looked grim.

Yay. Can't wait to get the report from the angry misses when she lands after a three hour ground delay at PHL.

[Johnny Deep]

^^^

Are we still on tap for a much needed refresher on Wednesday? Beyond?

[Xover]

Jackson and Targhee skied most excellent this past Sunday and yesterday, respectively

[lionelhutz]

^^^

Are we still on tap for a much needed refresher on Wednesday? Beyond?

Next event is Wednesday - prob in the 8-10 range. If it stalls it goes up. Speeds up - goes down. pretty decent upward motion forecast so that's good.

Following that another wave moves in from the NW. Operation GFS isn't quite in line with the ensemble models or the EC model...but all show another moderate round of snow.

Edit: I really really like sushi and am seeking advice on the best fish in SLC. I'm not a roll guy when there is really fresh sashimi and nigiri. the Ms. and I are thinking Naked Fish ...have also heard advice on Tsunami in cottonwood heights and Takahasi

[TeleThor]

Edit: I really really like sushi and am seeking advice on the best fish in SLC. I'm not a roll guy when there is really fresh sashimi and nigiri. the Ms. and I are thinking Naked Fish ...have also heard advice on Tsunami in cottonwood heights and Takahasi

I've had good experiences with Tsunami. Highly recommended.

[monkeywrenchMoose]

Next event is Wednesday - prob in the 8-10 range. If it stalls it goes up. Speeds up - goes down. pretty decent upward motion forecast so that's good.

Following that another wave moves in from the NW. Operation GFS isn't quite in line with the ensemble models or the EC model...but all show another moderate round of snow.

Edit: I really really like sushi and am seeking advice on the best fish in SLC. I'm not a roll guy when there is really fresh sashimi and nigiri. the Ms. and I are thinking Naked Fish ...have also heard advice on Tsunami in cottonwood heights and Takahasi

Hope it stalls. We'll need more than dust on crust to help heal this ice. That being said I had fun skiing yesterday at the bird. Made the most of a shitty day. Does anyone know how valid the "raising the ground level" theory is in Utah? I've heard of it in BC, but am wondering if we would need like a week of solid rain to make that happen.

Oh and sushi. Ichiban Sushi has been our go to place for sushi for the last 10 or so years. Very, very high quality fish there. A more traditional atmosphere as opposed to the contemporary, techno-background music atmosphere found at Happy Sumo.

[Professor]

Totally weather related..... Lionel, go to Takashi for what you are looking for and just ask what the chefs recommend. It may be a bit more spendy than other options, but for sashimi you will not be disappointed. I have had some crazy good stuff in there.

[Alx88]

Takashi..

[lionelhutz]

Takashi..

Sorry to derail the thread...thanks for the advice all.

BTW there's a joke somewhere in here about fresh sushi, momo girls and virginity but I'm not smart enough to make it.

Back to the regularly scheduled programming.
Let it snow.

[ectreeskier11]

unless we get a miracle and the temperature stays up a lot longer than expected and actually even affects the current surface, the 6-10 or whatever tomorrow won't do a whole lot. things are looking bleak up there. hope for the best, expect the worst.

[Johnny Deep]

unless we get a miracle and the temperature stays up a lot longer than expected and actually even affects the current surface, the 6-10 or whatever tomorrow won't do a whole lot. things are looking bleak up there. hope for the best, expect the worst.

I'm thinking the 6-10 will pool a lot nice than yesterdays grapple. The steeps, well, that one will be what it is.

Pray for good bonding.

[backcountryben]

Hope it stalls. We'll need more than dust on crust to help heal this ice. That being said I had fun skiing yesterday at the bird. Made the most of a shitty day. Does anyone know how valid the "raising the ground level" theory is in Utah? I've heard of it in BC, but am wondering if we would need like a week of solid rain to make that happen.

I don't know how it works for utah specifically (probably because it only happens once every 20 years there!), but it certainly happens plenty back east. I'd say it probably depends on how thick and uniform the ice crust is. Back here when we have a good rain event followed by a deep freeze it tends to make everything from valley to summit caked under a thick layer of ice... I think the idea is that you get such incredible bridging strength from the ice layers and frozen saturated snow that all the deep instabilities kinda go away. If you don't have the thick ice layer (and frozen saturated snow), or if it's not uniform/doesn't go all the way up, I'd imagine some of the weak layers would still be in play, although it'll probably help the stability...

[Tresckow]

I figured you all might have too much sand in the vagina after I heard the compaining, then I received this text from my wife at the Bird today: "Worst skiing ever. top of mtn closed just so no slide 4 life. scary icy"

stay safe up there folks

[alTAos]

I figured you all might have too much sand in the vagina after I heard the compaining, then I received this text from my wife at the Bird today: "Worst skiing ever. top of mtn closed just so no slide 4 life. scary icy"

stay safe up there folks

I've never seen anything like it out west. Reminds of of growing up at Sugarloaf and the yearly rain freeze events. Personally I had a blast. Silver Fox was sweet (all relative) and skiing the lower section bumps under peruvian is about as challenging as it gets.

But it is frozen mank all the way up.

[dfinn]

I remember it doing the same thing 2 or 3 seasons ago. I grew up skiing on the EC and can easily say the 2 worst days of my life conditions wise have been at snowbird. It snowed, things got better.

[ZachClanton]

Always wanted to go ice climbing...

[Southeast Maggot]

Skinned up to Fantasy ridge from Alta with Paj this morning, just to see how bad it was up high and fully expecting to ski the groomer track back to the bottom.

Pleasantly surprised to find south-southeast aspects to be holding graupel-corn, which was soft enough to make for some spring-like skiing:



North and west facing snow was death crust/glare ice. Don't fall.

[skiski]

Next event is Wednesday - prob in the 8-10 range. If it stalls it goes up. Speeds up - goes down. pretty decent upward motion forecast so that's good.

Following that another wave moves in from the NW. Operation GFS isn't quite in line with the ensemble models or the EC model...but all show another moderate round of snow.

Edit: I really really like sushi and am seeking advice on the best fish in SLC. I'm not a roll guy when there is really fresh sashimi and nigiri. the Ms. and I are thinking Naked Fish ...have also heard advice on Tsunami in cottonwood heights and Takahasi

On your question - Takashi.

Regarding the weather, I've looked at the GFS models and see a fair storm Wednesday, a maybe kinda fair storm saturday, then the goddamned dreaded ridge of death moving over us from there until the end of time. And this is the only thing that seems consistent from run to run. Can you see any kind of inconsistency that I don't see, or some other model telling me that the fucking goddamned dreaded ridge of death is not going to be over us for at least two weeks starting saturday? Lie to me if you have to.