Big Ben

Well, the first snow flakes of the season have started to fall in North America. Colorado got a dusting last week, Vancouver Island just got a few inches up high, and it's dumping snow at Alta and the rest of the Wasatch, with up to a foot and a half expected. So to honor the new season here's a trip report from a fantastic day last season in Utah.

Towering 5200' over Ogden is 9712' Ben Lomond. It's definitely the monarch of the Ogden area and was instantly on my "to ski" list when I first moved to Ogden. All of the lines off of Ben Lomond are very serious. The most mellow line and generally best snow holding line is the massive NE bowl which falls several thousand feet to Cutler Creek below. The pitch is a consistent 35-40 degrees and was the site of two tragic snowmobiler deaths a few years ago when they triggered a gigantic 1/2 mile wide avalanche. The bowl is pretty exposed and gets massive cross and top loading so I had been biding my time for the right time to ski this beast. Conditions seemed right for a go on Sunday, March 15, 2009.

Here's a view of the massive south face of Ben Lomond as seen from Ogden. This photo was taken in mid April about a month after we skied it.



I met up with Doug and his friend GR at the parking lot at 6am and we began skinning up by headlamp.



We watched the sun come up behind James Peak and the rest of Powder Mountain.





And the first few rays of light shone on our objective: The NE face of Ben Lomond.



We worked our way up to the main ridge on the left in the photo above and then switched to booting as the angle increased and the snow became more wind jacked. I liked this one better in black & white.



GR looks over the Ogden Valley after booting to the ridgeline. Mt. Ogden can be seen in the background along with the stunning Banana Chute, a 40 degree, 2500 vertical foot couloir we skied in February down to Ogden.



Me booting the rest of the way to the summit.



And delivering a Sunday morning summit sermon to the masses.



The boys on top. Doug, GR, and Joshua.



The views over to Willard Peak were fantastic. The whole bowl from Ben Lomond to Willard slid when it killed those snowmobilers.



Doug dropping into the upper 40 degree section. We had nice windbuffed powder. All in all, good snow for a line that exposed.



Two variations on the same shot. One without tilt shift...



The other with. This is GR about half way down the face.


And another of GR.



The snow got even better down low below 7500'. Here's Doug finding some nice pow.





4100' of skiing, and just over 4 hours later we were back at the car. Here's another view of Ben Lomonds NE bowl and the whole Cutler Basin as seen from James Peak at Powder Mountain on April 17, 2009. Ben Lomond on the left, Willard Peak on the right.