Snowbird & Alta, UT 06/18/2005

Plans were hatched in a Salt Lake coffee shop late last evening. As a result, I was going to get to mark one more "must-do" line off my list before the end of the 2004-05 season. Here it was going to be June 18, and we were going to ski Baldy Main Chute!

Marc_C, Dale, Bob Dangerous and I all rendezvoused on the Tram Plaza deck 45 minutes later than planned at 8:45. Marc_C and I walked in at 8:05, a whopping 5 minutes late, but Dale & Bob had decided to catch the first tram without us for a run in Peruvian Cirque. Their exploration did let us know, however, that you could still ski to within about 200 yards of the base of the Tram.

Up we went. It was as clear a day as they come, but the wind was howling across the ridgeline as we set off for the col between Hidden Peak and Mt. Baldy, clicked out of our skis, and started hoofing up the knife edge toward Baldy's summit.

It was about a 45-minute schlep before we reached the snowless crown of Baldy. The wind continued unabated, but we still relaxed a bit to catch our collective breath, try to calm nerves, and take in the 360-degree panoramas. Before long, however, it was time to push off.

We first caught glimpses down Little Chute and Middle Chute, being careful not to get caught up in the rotten snow on the flat summit and tumble into the abyss. Bob, our guide, pushed off first, carving beautiful turns in absolutely perfect corn, shaving off about 4" of the stuff with every turn. A river of slush formed in the center of the gully, and just kept running non-stop for a good 4 or 5 minutes. One by one we each pushed off, stopping after several hundred verts to regroup. Bob clocks Main Chute at 50 to 55 degrees, but I swear it wasn't as intimidating to me from above as it is from below.

In the narrowest part of the throat rocks began to appear -- not rocks from the ground, but good-sized chunks that had rained down from the heating of the cliffs above. We treated them as slalom gates, carving turns down between and through them.

Just a few minutes after the start of the run, Main Chute was over all too soon as we popped out above Ballroom in Alta Ski Area, closed for the season for a full 2 months now, but the fabulous turns were far from over. We cut slightly left to Harold's, where we carved up the unblemished corn in big arcs, pausing at the bottom to admire our signatures in the snow. Then we clicked out of our skis again for the short hike to the top of Alta's Wildcat chair.

Pausing again for a moment, we drank in the views of Alta below, noting that the old Watson Shelter is already gone and part of the foundation for the new restaurant is already poured. Pushing off through the trees we found ourselves atop the Keyhole back into Snowbird, still perfectly covered, yet tight in living up to its name. Before we knew it we were back on the Tram Plaza, an accumulated 4,278 vertical feet later.

Things were too good to stop now, so we headed back up and out the same knife-edge ridge to return to the scene of our best run from two weeks ago: High Baldy Triangle (a.k.a Colossus per Bob). Sure enough, the due-north aspect yielded perfect corn at noon, yet another stellar spring run down to Eye of the Needle Chute and back to the base. As we made our final turns, it was peculiar to hear the "click, click, click" of sleds cruising down the resort's summer alpine slide as we skied. Two runs, 7,480 vertical feet, and 4 hours after we began, we were all toast.

Yet another perfect June day in the Wasatch!
(I've got lots and lots of photos for you today -- too many, but a mere fraction of what I took. I'll split them amongst two posts to improve page loading performance -- the second post only for the additional photos is here.)

One problem with usually being the guy with the camera is that you never seem to get pix of yourself. Well, being the vain guy that I am, I've posted some of Marc_C's photos that I just received here.

can you ski that chute in the winter or is it just 2 dangerous... when i went out there the top of baldy peak was all roped off

awf170":3kb584wn said:

can you ski that chute in the winter or is it just 2 dangerous... when i went out there the top of baldy peak was all roped off

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It gets skied in the winter, sometimes even forming small bumps. When you were there it may have been closed for avi conditions.

You do need to access it via a gate in the ropeline, just like any other sidecountry here. There are 3 ways to reach the summit of Baldy. The easiest is the route that we took yesterday from Snowbird's summit along the Peruvian ridgeline. You can also hike from the top of the Collins chair or Sugarloaf Pass, both within Alta.

Admin":2bc9wbyi said:

awf170":2bc9wbyi said:

can you ski that chute in the winter or is it just 2 dangerous... when i went out there the top of baldy peak was all roped off

Click to expand...

It gets skied in the winter, sometimes even forming small bumps. When you were there it may have been closed for avi conditions.

You do need to access it via a gate in the ropeline, just like any other sidecountry here. There are 3 ways to reach the summit of Baldy. The easiest is the route that we took yesterday from Snowbird's summit along the Peruvian ridgeline. You can also hike from the top of the Collins chair or Sugarloaf Pass, both within Alta.

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ohh ya i looked at that ridge hike from the top of alta... that is one steep scary looking climb
It is wierd though i dont remember seeing any gates, must of not been paying attention while i was gasping for air(stupid low elavation east)

Wow ! really impressive !

Congrats and thanks for the pics !

(and congrats to have left East-Coast...)

Admin":3cndrrna said:

awf170":3cndrrna said:

can you ski that chute in the winter or is it just 2 dangerous... when i went out there the top of baldy peak was all roped off

Click to expand...

It gets skied in the winter, sometimes even forming small bumps. When you were there it may have been closed for avi conditions.

Click to expand...

Since all of Baldy can slide big (see image below), and since they all run-out across Ballroom and Main Street, Alta is extremely conservative about opening them and will do so only if avi conditions look to be stable (but they'll toss 4 or 6 shells into Main, Little, and Perla's anyway) and weather doesn't have any predicted warm-ups or new snow. This past season the chutes were open maybe two dozen days, if that. If you're visiting, it's a matter of pure luck to be here when they're open. One hint: it's very rare for them to be open before February at the earliest. A few seasons ago during a slightly less than average snow year, they didn't open until the end of March, and only for 4 days.

One example.... In January, while doing control work on a minimal-powder (10"?) Tuesday, Baldy let go from the Collins ridge across the face to Perla's - about half the East Face of Baldy. It took out 8" diameter trees, removed a small grove on the edge of Ballroom, and left a 25' deep pile of debris on Main Street and Mambo, closing those two runs for 2 days. Of course since the chutes were littered with avi debris (Perla's tore out down to rock), they were unskiable for a couple of weeks till we got more snow.

Admin":3cndrrna said:

You do need to access it via a gate in the ropeline, just like any other sidecountry here. There are 3 ways to reach the summit of Baldy. The easiest is the route that we took yesterday from Snowbird's summit along the Peruvian ridgeline. You can also hike from the top of the Collins chair or Sugarloaf Pass, both within Alta.

Click to expand...

Minor correction - only two ways to the summit. The gate at the top of Collins (above both the Ballroom and Baldy Shoulder gates) is a rising traverse just below the ridge line that separates Collins Gulch from Sugarloaf. That traverse accesses a series of small chutes (the Rotator Chutes, iirc) on the far left side of Baldy, above the very early part of Ballroom - ie: well before you get over to the outrun of Perla's. The traverse/ridge-line is blocked from the summit by 400' of cliff bands.

From a hard numbers standpoint, the climb to Baldy from either Snowbird or Sugarloaf Pass appears about the same - roughly a mile and a 600' (from Sloaf) or 700' (from Bird) elevation gain. The difference though is that a chunk of the traverse from Snowbird can be done on skis while from Sugarloaf it's a 100% uphill slog. Also, the ridge from Snowbird is much more consistent in pitch, hence much less steep. From Sugarloaf there's a stretch of 200 vert feet that is steeper than an average staircase and not always snow covered.

this doesnt really involve this conversation but what is the pitch of high alfs rustler... by looking at a topo and doing some math i figure that the average pitch down to the first road cut across where it gets groomed is 30-35 degrees, then the steepest pitch is about 45 degrees am i pretty accurate.
An other ? about pitch what do you think the pitch is of that steep drop under the gad 2 valley chair, that seemed extremely steep and that little drop in the middle made it seem even steep, i ended up going off that then rolling down half the trail

Beautiful Admin
I hatred you!!!!! :twisted:
Me under the sun on a beach, and u on the mountain...... i'm crying.

CIAO

dede":1sjseukn said:

Beautiful Admin
I hatred you!!!!! :twisted:
Me under the sun on a beach, and u on the mountain...... i'm crying.

CIAO

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A big welcome to our first registered member in Italy!

GRAZIE, THANK YOU!!!

awf170":2k5r8j7a said:

this doesnt really involve this conversation but what is the pitch of high alfs rustler... by looking at a topo and doing some math i figure that the average pitch down to the first road cut across where it gets groomed is 30-35 degrees, then the steepest pitch is about 45 degrees am i pretty accurate.

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That's a reasonable guess. I put the upper 1/4 starting at 45 deg. then fairly quickly going to 40+ish. After that, the bulk of the run is around 38 deg. dropping to 35 or a little less near the bottom before the cat track.

awf170":2k5r8j7a said:

An other ? about pitch what do you think the pitch is of that steep drop under the gad 2 valley chair, that seemed extremely steep and that little drop in the middle made it seem even steep, i ended up going off that then rolling down half the trail

Click to expand...

That always felt like a pretty solid upper 40s pitch. If the drop you're referring to was this season, that was an avalanche fracture line. It was a natural and fortunately it went in the middle of the night - it may have killed people if it was during the day.

Marc_C":ofxiuzj0 said:

awf170":ofxiuzj0 said:

this doesnt really involve this conversation but what is the pitch of high alfs rustler... by looking at a topo and doing some math i figure that the average pitch down to the first road cut across where it gets groomed is 30-35 degrees, then the steepest pitch is about 45 degrees am i pretty accurate.

Click to expand...

That's a reasonable guess. I put the upper 1/4 starting at 45 deg. then fairly quickly going to 40+ish. After that, the bulk of the run is around 38 deg. dropping to 35 or a little less near the bottom before the cat track.

awf170":ofxiuzj0 said:

An other ? about pitch what do you think the pitch is of that steep drop under the gad 2 valley chair, that seemed extremely steep and that little drop in the middle made it seem even steep, i ended up going off that then rolling down half the trail

Click to expand...

That always felt like a pretty solid upper 40s pitch. If the drop you're referring to was this season, that was an avalanche fracture line. It was a natural and fortunately it went in the middle of the night - it may have killed people if it was during the day.

Click to expand...

that avalance fracture line was wild never seen anything like that on a trail under a lift, funky. It made one nice jump though.
Defiantly not a fun trail to hike back up and get my ski though

Despite spending the last 3 days at Mammoth and Yosemite I'm also jealous. I skied Main Chute on March 22, 1990, hiking 45 minutes from Sugarloaf. I looked up my notes. It was a typical warm day that I get on my March trips to Utah, and 90% of Alta already had spring conditions. So my Canadian friend Dave Fairhall and I decided to climb Baldy despite being our first day away from sea level. It was truly a memorable run, with dry and fluffy packed powder sheltered by those huge rock walls. The first pic on the second posting shows the scale well. There are no constrictions and plenty of room to make comfortable turns. My guess is that it's a consistent 35-40 degrees but it skied easily that day due to perfect snow quality. Not like Big Couloir at Big Sky, where on the upper half of the run I felt like I was taking my life in my hands on nearly every turn.

My advice to those who are tempted on a day at Alta when Main Chute is open is to go for it. Recall that we waited 2 days too late this March, and the top got windswept so patrol had to close it.