Peak 9269

Yesterday my friend Jeff and I headed down to Big Cottonwood Canyon outside of Salt Lake City for some backcountry skiing. Since we had no snow before, and we've gotten quite a bit in the last few days, avalanche danger is considerable. Our current snowpack is interesting up in Ogden and it's downright scary in Salt Lake. So, with that in mind, the plan was to play it conservative and see what we could find.

We headed to an area called Mill D which has a lot of mellower, treed terrain that is great to play in when avalanche conditions are unstable. We skinned up through beautiful Aspen trees...



...and Jeff instantly became a convert to the Dynafit clan after his first day touring on these incredibly light bindings.



Then we decided to take a quick lap once we gained a little ridge.



After a quick bite to eat we headed back up for more but this time worked our way up higher following someone's beautifully placed skin track that lead through gorgeous aspen glades...



...then on up to moderately angled alpine terrain to the summit of Peak 9269. Jeff skins the last few vertical feet to the summit.



The boys on top. It was blustery up here. The temperature was probably -10F with the wind chill. We didn't stay long.



The powder was windbuffed and some areas were crossloaded, but there wasn't enough of a pitch for anything to move. Minor cracking was observed while skiing but only on the top 1 centimeter where a slight wind crust had formed. We had great windbuffed powder turns on the descent. Here I am enjoying some of the goods on the upper portion of the peak.



And Jeff getting great early season turns lower down.



I have a couple videos from the day that I've loaded via YouTube. Hopefully everyone will like this format better as it allows you to blow up the video to full screen.

Jeff testing out how well his Dynafits handle the Pow.



And me skiing down the middle section of Peak 9269. Jeff zoomed his camera while recording so that's why it looks like the picture jumps a couple times.



Another fantastic day out in the backcountry.

Yeah for Powder

Well, we're finally getting some snow. It's snowed well over a foot in the mountains around Ogden, probably close to 15 or 16" as of today and a few more inches are expected for tomorrow/Tuesday and then more snow later in the week. Praise Jesus. I did a little touring around Snowbasin yesterday and then headed up to Powder Mountain later in the afternoon. Skinned up through 10-12" of light fluffy goodness at Powder, caught the sunset over the Salt Lake...



...and then made some lovely turns in 10 inches of Utah pow.



Today I headed up to Logan, Utah, which is about 70 miles north of Ogden. Simon and I headed to Beaver Mountain, a local ski hill, that's not open yet and thought we'd poach on some of their snow. There was 12" in the parking lot and 16" higher up. It wasn't as light as I'd hoped, so that face shots weren't as plentiful as you'd expect, but it was still durn good.

A composition I liked.



Sun and fresh snow.



Simon's first turns of the year.






And a video of me enjoying the goodness.

Finally

"A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR SNOW AND STRONG WINDS REMAINS IN EFFECT
UNTIL 5 PM MST SUNDAY.

THIS WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR THE VALLEYS OF NORTHWEST UTAH
INCLUDING THE WASATCH FRONT AND ALL THE NORTHERN MOUNTAINS.

TOTAL SNOWFALL ACCUMULATIONS 3 TO 6 INCHES ARE EXPECTED IN THE
VALLEYS WITH UP TO 8 INCHES ON THE BENCH AREAS AND HIGHER
VALLEYS. TOTAL SNOWFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 16 TO 24 INCHES ARE
EXPECTED IN THE MOUNTAINS BY LATE SUNDAY AFTERNOON."

Now lets see if it comes true.

Mt. Ogden

The first dawn patrol of the season was a rewarding one. Beautiful views, finally some powder, and a beautiful summit bagged. I met up with new friend Doug at 6:30am at the Snowbasin parking lot. Fortunately, he had an extra pair of skis for me to borrow since my skis are down in Salt Lake getting remounted. Since it snowed 5 inches on Monday, the first time in a while, the plan was to get up high and check out how well the new snow was bonding with the nasty death crust from before.

Since the only place where there is enough snow is still Snowbasin, we decided to poach on their manmade snow again in order to get up into some of the higher bowls where the lifts don't go. The snowguns were on in full force and they just happened to be out route access. We were both caked with a fine snowmist for the first 1000 vertical feet or so. It's an interesting feeling. Makes you feel like your walking through a humidifier, sweating, freezing, and drooling on yourself all at the same time. We watched the sunrise as we skinned up. It did not disappoint.

Alpenglow on Mt. Ogden, where we'd be on top of in another hour and a half.







My favorite photo of the day.



As we got higher, we decided to check out the main bowl between Mt. Ogden and the Needles. We dug a few handpits and decided to proceed to the pass that's just left of the photo above. We were treated with great views of Ogden and Malan's Basin from just over 9100 feet.



Since we were only another 400 vertical feet from the summit of Mt. Ogden we decided to bag the peak. Here's Mt. Ogden's west face seen from the pass.



And a look back to the Needles. We skied the bowl in the foreground back down.



A quick skin up the backside and then about 50 vertical feet of scrambling/booting led us to the summit. The last few feet were fun and exposed, climbing along a ridge with a couple hundred foot drop off to the east. Sorry I forgot to take that photo. But we got this one of me on top.



And then it was time for our near 3200' decent. We found some crust and some hardpack, but most importantly, we found some powder! It's been over a month since I've felt this stuff under my skis.



Looking back at my line with Mt. Ogden behind.



Doug skis a different line after digging a quick snowpit.



Looking back at Mt. Ogden. We skied the main bowl to the left of the peak and then connected up with the groomers back down to the car. Definitely a beautiful day to be out. Storms are coming this weekend!

Clouds and Wind

Headed out for a little afternoon tour again today. A storm was supposed to roll through so I thought I'd sneak up and do some more poking around in the snow before it fell. I wasn't moving so fast today. I felt a little tired after touring Sunday, running 6 miles of hills on Monday and then going climbing afterwards. We'll see how the legs feel tomorrow!

I was back at Snowbasin again since that's really the only place for me to go touring around Ogden right now. Here's looking over at De Moisy Peak after skinning up 2200 feet. It was very windy today. I almost got knocked over a few times.



I look like a turtle here.



A couple chutes off of De Moisy that I'd like to ski this winter.



About three weeks ago, I skinned up here and stopped for lunch. Unfortunately I left my water bottle. Fortunately for me it was still laying around. Probably didn't hurt that it was frozen in place.



I dug a snow pit up high in Middle Bowl and found a scary snowpack. Only about 45 cms deep. 4cm thick crust, then 1cm of facets, then another crust (3cms thick), and then 35 cms of facets and depth hoar. Exactly what I DON'T like to see when I dig a pit. Once we get enough snow, that sucker is probably going to avalanche to ground.

Portraits of Solitude

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful day. I headed out this afternoon for a quick skin up at Snowbasin. Thankfully there was a bit of manmade snow that they'd been blowing, so I was able to get some turns in since Utah has been so warm and dry for the last couple weeks. Anyway, here's a few photos from the day.

Hooray! I can ski from the parking lot again!



Heading on up.



Clouds and someone else's tracks on the way up.






And our lovely snowpack off of the groomed trails. 35cms deep. Lots of crusts and lots of facets. Oh goody.

An Offering

In an attempt to appease the snow gods and show them that, yes, I am ready for the snow to come in full force - to show them that I am ready to sweat for it - I offer this collection of trailbreaking/skinning up photos. Please let it snow soon.