Day 54: We skipped over spring
Straight into summer today, folks. It was already 57 degrees as I entered Little Cottonwood Canyon at 9:30 a.m. as folks back east were dealing with over two feet of new snow in places. Marc_C, Amy and Amy's brother Andrew (visiting from NJ) booted up outside on the Goldminer's Daughter patio. I wore only a Mountain Hardwear Transition T and the thinnest of shells with the pit zips open all day, and was way too warm most of the time.
I'd expected slop as the temps never dipped below freezing all night. I was wrong. The Powderkeg, a masochistic ski mountaineering race, was finishing up as we got ready for the day. I found myself chatting with a competitor, and asked if it was corn or glop out there. No, I was told, it was actually frozen solid. Apparently the snowpack has such massive thermal mass that it still froze solid overnight despite the warm temps.
We would then have to follow the sun, skiing southeasterly aspects in the morning, and westerly aspects only from mid-afternoon on. We made few poor choices. It was a lazy day of slow, low-energy turns primarily on groomers. I never felt dialed in today, but didn't much care if I didn't, either. First run was Razorback to Devil's Elbow, and we managed to get corn bumps on Yellow Trail early before they closed Backside around lunch time and lit some massive avi charges (one of them must've been a six-pounder, the concussion shook everything) as we had burgers and beers on the sun deck of Alf's. We took a couple of runs off Supreme, too, on an absolutely perfect Rock 'n Roll and on No. 9 Express which had actually been groomed yesterday.
On our last run, we all headed out the High Traverse. We were heading for Greeley Bowl, but I suspected that as it was by now 3 pm we'd find manky snow over there, or worse still a skin crust reforming without the direct sun's effect. West Rustler, however, seemed to be just about right and I slipped down between the trees to access No Name. Marc_C followed, but apparently Andrew wasn't too comfortable about tight quarters with thin cover, so Pat led Andrew and Amy through Piss Pass to North Rustler...or so they thought.
The last thing we heard was one of them yelling that they'd meet us at the bottom. Marc_C and I found that No Name was at perfection, with soft corn atop a firm base. We waited at the bottom of Collins...and waited...and waited. A good 15-20 minutes went by before his cell phone rang. Transmission was garbled, but he could make out that they were fine, but that they'd be a while, and something about a rope line.
So Marc_C and I retired to the Goldminer's Daughter patio for a beer. The sun was blazing. Folks were sitting outside in t-shirts, shorts, tank tops, and even a couple of guys with no shirt. Finally, nearly an hour after splitting atop No Name, the other three staggered in, breathing hard, exhausted, and soaking wet.
It turns out that Pat "made a wrong turn somewhere" and they got cliffed out. Not seeing a way through (although from the best we can gather on where they were there were probably at least two options) they opted instead to climb out, which Andrew estimated at 300 yards of steep hillside. Needless to say, by that point everyone was done. We'd racked up only 8 runs and 10,200 verts, but it was exhausting skiing.
And we had to be done. The canyon road and the Alta Bypass Road were both closing above Snowbird Entry 4 at 4:45 pm, and all of Alta was going into Interlodge at 5, so that the DOT could blast the entire south ridge from Superior across Flagstaff to Emma Ridge. When I left around 4:15 the canyon road was already closed at Hellgate and we had to take the Bypass. As I drove down the canyon I paused to photograph the massive wet slide on West Hellgate that ran down to the dirt for nearly 1,500 vertical feet right to the canyon road. The river of debris was absolutely mind-blowing.
I'm going up again tomorrow, but 11 am seems like a better arrival time than today's 10 am, just to give it more time to soften in the sun. Today was gorgeous, but also mildly depressing. We don't have a lot of base to begin with, and if this hot high pressure keeps up it's going to disappear quickly. Hopefully the storm forecast for Tuesday into Wednesday will bring enough snow and change the pattern sufficiently to prolong our season. The snow level is expected to go all the way to the Valley floor Tuesday night.
Straight into summer today, folks. It was already 57 degrees as I entered Little Cottonwood Canyon at 9:30 a.m. as folks back east were dealing with over two feet of new snow in places. Marc_C, Amy and Amy's brother Andrew (visiting from NJ) booted up outside on the Goldminer's Daughter patio. I wore only a Mountain Hardwear Transition T and the thinnest of shells with the pit zips open all day, and was way too warm most of the time.
I'd expected slop as the temps never dipped below freezing all night. I was wrong. The Powderkeg, a masochistic ski mountaineering race, was finishing up as we got ready for the day. I found myself chatting with a competitor, and asked if it was corn or glop out there. No, I was told, it was actually frozen solid. Apparently the snowpack has such massive thermal mass that it still froze solid overnight despite the warm temps.
We would then have to follow the sun, skiing southeasterly aspects in the morning, and westerly aspects only from mid-afternoon on. We made few poor choices. It was a lazy day of slow, low-energy turns primarily on groomers. I never felt dialed in today, but didn't much care if I didn't, either. First run was Razorback to Devil's Elbow, and we managed to get corn bumps on Yellow Trail early before they closed Backside around lunch time and lit some massive avi charges (one of them must've been a six-pounder, the concussion shook everything) as we had burgers and beers on the sun deck of Alf's. We took a couple of runs off Supreme, too, on an absolutely perfect Rock 'n Roll and on No. 9 Express which had actually been groomed yesterday.
On our last run, we all headed out the High Traverse. We were heading for Greeley Bowl, but I suspected that as it was by now 3 pm we'd find manky snow over there, or worse still a skin crust reforming without the direct sun's effect. West Rustler, however, seemed to be just about right and I slipped down between the trees to access No Name. Marc_C followed, but apparently Andrew wasn't too comfortable about tight quarters with thin cover, so Pat led Andrew and Amy through Piss Pass to North Rustler...or so they thought.
The last thing we heard was one of them yelling that they'd meet us at the bottom. Marc_C and I found that No Name was at perfection, with soft corn atop a firm base. We waited at the bottom of Collins...and waited...and waited. A good 15-20 minutes went by before his cell phone rang. Transmission was garbled, but he could make out that they were fine, but that they'd be a while, and something about a rope line.
So Marc_C and I retired to the Goldminer's Daughter patio for a beer. The sun was blazing. Folks were sitting outside in t-shirts, shorts, tank tops, and even a couple of guys with no shirt. Finally, nearly an hour after splitting atop No Name, the other three staggered in, breathing hard, exhausted, and soaking wet.
It turns out that Pat "made a wrong turn somewhere" and they got cliffed out. Not seeing a way through (although from the best we can gather on where they were there were probably at least two options) they opted instead to climb out, which Andrew estimated at 300 yards of steep hillside. Needless to say, by that point everyone was done. We'd racked up only 8 runs and 10,200 verts, but it was exhausting skiing.
And we had to be done. The canyon road and the Alta Bypass Road were both closing above Snowbird Entry 4 at 4:45 pm, and all of Alta was going into Interlodge at 5, so that the DOT could blast the entire south ridge from Superior across Flagstaff to Emma Ridge. When I left around 4:15 the canyon road was already closed at Hellgate and we had to take the Bypass. As I drove down the canyon I paused to photograph the massive wet slide on West Hellgate that ran down to the dirt for nearly 1,500 vertical feet right to the canyon road. The river of debris was absolutely mind-blowing.
I'm going up again tomorrow, but 11 am seems like a better arrival time than today's 10 am, just to give it more time to soften in the sun. Today was gorgeous, but also mildly depressing. We don't have a lot of base to begin with, and if this hot high pressure keeps up it's going to disappear quickly. Hopefully the storm forecast for Tuesday into Wednesday will bring enough snow and change the pattern sufficiently to prolong our season. The snow level is expected to go all the way to the Valley floor Tuesday night.
