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
Bookmarks