Wasatch Conditions 10-11

[shera]

Excellent! Nice job - that's a pretty cool face, eh?

A very beautiful mountain! 2700 ft sustained pitch. My legs are fried.

As seen from patsy marly.


Me skiing.


Imo skiing.


She took some nice scenics. First light.


That's me on the up.


The view from the top. For those studying the Keyhole face like me.


The high hanging bowl. Is this monte cristo?


Are these lovely aspens I spy?

[paj]

Great Pics

I went out to white pine yesterday and skied nw facing on lake peak then down into the trees to the road. Turning was great, anything in the shade was still powder, but there is surface hoar growing too. Maybe the warm temps today helped kill it.

Booted up here


But there was ice so we traversed across and then down


The turns were nice, just had to be wary of the ice layer very close to the surface.


Another reason I'm to glad to live up canyon





Great trees down below

[Alx88]

Any amount of explicit language cannot describe how treacherous today's journey was. I'll refer to to it as the Death March until a future trek proves more nut-bubbling. The last time I walked along such conditions I slid for life and broke my front tooth in half

Crampons are in order for comfortable ridge line travel.

Here's a few pictures of the Death March/Al's Incarnation

[tyfalk]

I recognize that turn. Did you ski some of those NE gullies off of the peak? It almost corned on the other side.

^Ya we did.. I figured that the other side would corn up. Were you skiing that West side?

[Bud Green]

Not sure how I got talked into going to Hogum today. Morbid curiousity I suppose. Stay out of there unless you are from the East coast.

We went to Hogum yesterday despite this post. I guess the 3-4" on Tuesday was enough to improve the skiing cuz it wasn't that bad in there. I was a little concerned at the top of the Hogum2, thinking it was going to be a sheet of ice and that ice skates might be more usefull tools than skis. But it was decent, I've skied it in much worse conditions. The Sliver was really good (by chute skiing standards). Even skiing out Hogum was fun, until we got to the bushwhacking.

[tyfalk]

We went to Hogum yesterday despite this post. I guess the 3-4" on Tuesday was enough to improve the skiing cuz it wasn't that bad in there. I was a little concerned at the top of the Hogum2, thinking it was going to be a sheet of ice and that ice skates might be more usefull tools than skis. But it was decent, I've skied it in much worse conditions. The Sliver was really good (by chute skiing standards). Even skiing out Hogum was fun, until we got to the bushwhacking.

^How filled in were those other East facing shots on Thunder?

[zion zig zag]

^Ya we did.. I figured that the other side would corn up. Were you skiing that West side?

Yeah, we were just south down the ridge from you, near Chilly Peak.

[sfotex]

Poked around in Days today. Saw lots of surface hoar in the morning, but a lot of it had melted out when we were leaving. Saw some slide debris up there too. Had some skining shenanigans up high on the ridge, the ice layer is still there.

[Mark H]

We went to Hogum yesterday despite this post. I guess the 3-4" on Tuesday was enough to improve the skiing cuz it wasn't that bad in there. The Sliver was really good (by chute skiing standards). Even skiing out Hogum was fun, until we got to the bushwhacking.

Yea I remember the upper 2/3 of the Sliver looked fine and I suggested to my group that we give it a try but the lower 1/3 was a hockey rink so they didn't want to mess with it. We did have a few dozen good turns in the west facing trees but anywhere the wind touched was horrible ice. Glad to hear that 4 inches made things better there. Gotta love those rare storms that don't totally wind jack Hogum.

Lately I've been roaming around Millcreek and have absolutely no complaints about snow quality there

[marauders]

Pics from two weeks back on Cascade. Finally skied all of Bunnells Fork from the top. Good snow (surface hoar), but flat light made for awkward skiing at times. Avy path goes all the way to the summer trail this year, allowing for skiing straight to the South Fork parking lot. That's a far cry from the horrendous bushwhack usually encountered in lower Bunnells.

[Bud Green]

^How filled in were those other East facing shots on Thunder?

The lower cliff band on Dresden is unskiable right now, imo. Needle looks good, but lowest apron on it looks scratchy. Montgomery still has a rappel in it. Anything that was catching a lot of sun was sluffing a bit. NW Pfieff looks good from a distance but it could be icy, not sure.

[brutah]

Lately I've been roaming around Millcreek and have absolutely no complaints about snow quality there

i'll second this notion.

[brutah]

on another note, are the powderbirds allowed in the mt olympus wilderness? saw them dropping and picking people up off the backside of raymond, which i thought was in the wilderness area...... i know you pass wilderness signs on the way up from both butler and porter fork

[lionelhutz]

Any word on the lifeflight evac from alta today? Saw injured skier being attended to on devils elbow around 11. By noon skier was being evaced by heli with an iv inserted. (Could see medic holding iv bag) vibes most likelt needed.

[Ice_Coaster]

The 'Bird was a little crusty today but Mineral still had some decent spots. Hoping for the high end of the predicted snowfall range over these next couple days..

[Wintergreen]

BRUTAH, Powderbirds are not allowed in the Olympus wilderness area, or any other wilderness area. They do ski the Raymond glade though, which is as far west as they can go in that area. The wilderness boundary run from northwest to southeast in the vicinity of the pass into Porter fork, so from the shoulder of Raymond to the north is ok, but heading south into big cottonwood would not be. They can land on the edge of the boundary just not ski into the wilderness area.

[brutah]

BRUTAH, Powderbirds are not allowed in the Olympus wilderness area, or any other wilderness area. They do ski the Raymond glade though, which is as far west as they can go in that area. The wilderness boundary run from northwest to southeast in the vicinity of the pass into Porter fork, so from the shoulder of Raymond to the north is ok, but heading south into big cottonwood would not be. They can land on the edge of the boundary just not ski into the wilderness area.

it looks like they were okay then. they skied north from where the helicopter is in these pics..... the group was picked up in porter's fork

heli is on the ridge below the summit



more zoomed in look



didn't matter that they were there, there was plenty of good pow for everyone.

[sfotex]

Oh yeah, found a G3 Onyx tour lever in Days yesterday if anyone is missing one.

[icelanticskier]

one of my fave spots out there for noodle farming morning corn. just about the perfect length and pitch for it.

rog

[Boissal]

NW Pfieff looks good from a distance but it could be icy, not sure.

It skis just like you would expect WI2 to ski: not well.

[glademaster]

How is coverage holding up on various aspects? I imagine it's getting thin in some places given it's snowed all of 3 feet in the last month.

[Trackhead]

It skis just like you would expect WI2 to ski: not well.

...............

[skiski]

Has anyone come across a snowsaw left by a skintrack somewhere in the wasatch this month? I've recently come to the conclusion that I left it somewhere while skiing. It's a silver, foldable saw in a black zippered case. Possible locations include Scotty's Bowl, Tom's Hill, West or Main Porter, lower to mid Days Fork, and maybe some other places I'm not recalling right now.

Longshot, I know, but thought i might as well ask.

[ZachClanton]

Some interesting obs as of late. I was just talking about how I didn't see any signs of instability down south except for a couple cracking wind slabs. Then Drew tells me about this avalanche he remotely triggered near our skin track only an hour or so after we had passed.

http://utahavalanchecenter.org/avala...canyon_1282011

The line we skied was much larger and steeper than the slope that slid but I suspect the crust was much more stout on this N-NE aspect compared to SE. The variability of conditions out there is amazing.


Cheating is nice sometimes.


Ice runnels... a new one for me


Still some great snow up high

[lionelhutz]

Looks like 12-14 inches of snow fell over the last 24 hours in the high cottonwoods. Amazing fluff factor as Collins plot only shows .5 to .6 inches of water. Very low density snow should make for some really sick blower turns in the trees. Snowfall spiked this am with the passage of an arctic front. Temps above 9k ft are already around 0 with wind chills in the negative teens. Winds are going to move this snow around quite a bit and prob. will blow from the NE later in the day. So...yea...have fun.

SheRa...any word on where that cocktail napkin forecast I wrote up ended up? I think I actually got this storm right.