Well boys and girls, we are down to the wire now. Just under 2 weeks to my fateful departure. I have a lot of blogging to get done before that day comes up! This next post (which btw, I wrote for a good hour or so then lost due to a very gracious 404 provided by comcast when I tried to save it) will explain the final picture seen on the previous post. It is written in creative essay form, but is a rough draft from my moleskine, and I dont feel like doing a whole lot of editing, specially on round two of writing it here on the blog. So be nice, think of it as a draft, not a polished and published editorial. Alright, here we go:
Woke late. I’m not one for a Dawn Patrol in its truest sense if I can help it. Met up with Matt in very dawn soaked and saturated park and ride off I-15 at a very healthy and sleep conducive 8:17 am. I fufill my social responsibility with the generic greetings and intro quickly and pack my stuff up in his sexy red Kia. We head off, each of us delving as much as we can into others life and personality as we survey the mountains we are about to climb. We each want to know the man that we are trusting with our lives. Matt seems knowledgeable, kind, albeit a bit eccentric. Thats more than acceptable though, we all seem to get a bit giddy about this sport from time to time.
As we drive we both become more eccentric as the scenes unfold around us as we drive up Little Cottonwood. Coalpit, Lisa Falls, and Maybird display their wares in the bright sun, one of the first real bluebird days we have seen in weeks. Its looking rock solid in terms of snow stability and we muse about what we could do today. We have come with the plan of climbing Flagstaff and dropping into Cardiff, but that plan is tentative.
We get good looks at Monte Cristo and White Pine, Matt begins to muse about doing a Mt. Superior Summit. Admittedly, I am a bit nervous about this. During my growing years with winter weekends spent at Snowbird, Superior was the Mecca of local skiing as I knew it. Only people published and access to a helicopter could be doing that mountain, I thought in youthful naivety. Yet here I was, 19 years old, a mere 2 years of serious backcountry immersion, and I was faced with the proposition of skiing what to date will be the Largest, most exposed and continually steep lines I have ever done. This mountain to me looks like it has been transplanted from the Chugach Range in Alaska.
But as the full vista comes into view, with not a single track tainting its face yet, I decide that I am game. This year has been one of the best the Wasatch has seen in years, an to top it off the Avy Danger compass has been coated with green more often than not. To get a full frame of reference, we have a nice dusting of 6-12″ last night. Not that impressive one might say, but look a little wider in the frame. It has snowed 91″ inches the previous seven days in the Cottonwoods. On top of this, it has snowed nearly every day for 2 months, and its all set up and settled nicely into perfect stability pattern. We have more snow now at the beginning of February than we received all of last year.
Matt parks wildly at the Our Lady of the Snows church, and in five minutes I am listening to the familiar beep of the Avalanche Center Beacon check station. The skin track looks more machine cut than human made, perfectly straight, packed solid. Lots of traffic today. We watch groups of 1-3 spaced out by a few hundred yards slowly rise up the mountain. Not that I mind, there is plenty of goods to be had, and this is the Backcountry, not the resort, you can take your time for powder all day.
The going is easy, but slow. Matt is as much a photo buff as myself, and we stop what seems like every 200 ft to shoot off a few frames. And the light isnt even that great, too many high altitude clouds flattening it out. Regardless, we slowly rise to the top of Cardiff getting buzzed by the not so friendly Wasatch Powderbird Guides pilots every two minutes. Looks like everyone is getting at it today. Matt and I discuss the ever hot politics revolving around WPG and the rest of the Backcountry community. We both aren’t too fond of them, but not quite as passionate as many of those you find out here. We come to the conclusion that we wouldn’t want to pay 1200.00 for 5 runs while watching grimy ski bums hiking up to the same place for 5.00 bucks in gas and a whole lot of leg power. Should be a bit more of a novelty.
We hit the ridge and continue on our way to Superior. The weather begins to worsen as the ceiling comes down around us, but the worst damage its doing to us now it limiting the number of subjects we can shoot frames at. Any pictures look like we are floating in the white void. We start on the steep ascent of subpeak Little Superior as a group comes out of the fogs and quickly over takes us. These hardcore afternoon warriors are charging the hill like safety from the apocalypse is at the summit. Meanwhile I am slipping and sliding up the 40 degree hill, my skins struggling to keep enough traction while gravity tries to pull me back down the 5000 feet to the bottom. Even more helpful, I have noticed that underneath the bulletproof wind layers on the top of the ridge, there is a nice helping of sugary faceted snow underneath that falls away at the slightest disturbance. That could make the day a whole lot worse, and we are already at 11k. Hope that doesnt cause us to many problems.
We finally make it to the top of Little Superior and quickly decide as we sit in whiteout fog that a full summit is not in the cards today, and we will need to wait for the visibility to improve. Mockingly while our objective, the South Face has a visibility of about 20 ft the North Face is clear, bathed in blue light coming through the cloud wall blocking our decent on the other side. Makes for good pictures though, and Matt and I sit down to take a small lunch and shoot some more frames. Who knows how long this wait could be?
No more than two minutes later and half way into one of my three sandwiches the wait apparently is not that long. Suddenly the break comes full fledged and it is bluebird. Matt and I hurriedly hop up and start packing up our stuff again, ripping skins of skis and adjusting packs. That was quicker than expected. I glance over at Alta and Snowbird to chuckle slightly as I look at the lovely hardpack snow crisscrossed by thousands of tracks. Not a trace of powder left over there. I change my focus to a few dozen feet in front of me and look at the completely untouched powder that awaits me on this side of the canyon. Sure glad I am on this side.
But by the time we are prep, the ceiling has dropped again and visibility is back to nil. We’ve grown older and wiser too though this time around. We know another break is coming. We both prep where as to where we are going to run our lines and plan our decent. Matt is up first, while I shoot some frames of his initial decent just a few feet below the ridge. The ceiling rises, the sun comes out and Matt goes. Fluid turns and great powder I’m already envious, but 100 yards later and Matt disappears into the soup. We are left to shouting for communication as I prep for my decent, but the clouds are like clockwork now and I am ready. Ceiling rises, sun peeks out, and Matt raises viewfinder to eye. I give a shout and wave and start.
Perfect, popping turns are cranked out as I start down the largest line of my life so far. The snow is deep, but responsive and makes for great turns, The powder seems to find its way into each and every crack it can, but I don’t mind. Ecstasy is the only thing I am feeling right now.
8 tight turns into the hill and I think that my sluff is probably gone and I can cut back. I twist to the left, only to face the fluid motion of a snow river running right next to me. I am instantly hit with real evidence that this is a real mountain now, and that I am at a new level of backcountry skiing. My petty sluff that that I so diligently would manage on previous tours was more of a toy rather than a danger. But now I am on a real hill, and this stuff can be dangerous, as I am well aware as I face the 40 ft wide and 200 yard long flowing river of sluff. I mentally adjust to the new level of respect and diligence needed to ski this type of mountain. I’ve had good training, now its time to put it into practice. So, not going left, cut back to the right.
I soon find myself a little ways below Matt on a slight ridge on the hill, and wave to him to start his decent. My turn to lift Viewfinder to eye and I start shooting frames. Matt continues with beautiful turns down the hill and disappears back into the soup. I shout to him that I am starting and he gives a shout back. I bust through the soup out into the clear light, and lay a wave of skiers coke down on Matt for good measure.
“This time lets just finish it off all the way to the bottom”, Matt proposes. I quickly agree and we smoothly glide down the remaining 1k to the bottom, emerging ourselves in as much my drug of choice as possible. I feel adequately immersed, but Matt doesn’t seem to have gotten his fix as he goes over the handlebars to get some more. But not to worry, plenty of buffer space and Matt peeks out of his crater with a wide smile.
We finally hit the bottom, putting ourselves right now next to the road. Matt puts out a thumb to hitchhike the mile back to the car. I sit and take in what I just did. I’ve hit a new level of skiing, and I dont think I can go back. Not even the 5 inch gash through my core phases me, it was well worth the reward reaped from it. The mountain I thought would always be untouchable to myself when I was young has just made me into a bona fide Ski Mountaineer.
Now the Pics…there are too many to put them into their respective places in order. 1st ones mine, then a selection of Matts.
Now for Matts:
