Day 40: A pleasant surprise
I had a houseguest this weekend out to ski from Connecticut. Planning for Saturday, though, presented a challenge. Thursday night's storm was tracking north, which meant that the further north we'd go the more likely they'd get more snow, but a rain event earlier in the week drizzled up to 8,000 feet and warm days and freezing nights had further screwed with our snowpack. I wasn't convinced that there'd be enough snow to bury the concrete beneath.
I called Eddie the Texan around mid-day on Friday to inquire about conditions. "I'm standing in line for the cat," Eddie reported. "I just took one run out in Powder Country and I'm not making that mistake again!"
Something in my head, though, told me that we could find the goods up there. Skidog was helping Bluehouse out with a demo day on Saturday, and my houseguest had never skied anywhere in Utah outside of Alta. We'd give it a try.
We hit the road at 7:15, and by 8:15 we were sitting down to eggs and pancakes in Eddie's kitchen with passholder Greg and Mike from D.C. By 9:15 we were booting up under cloudless skies, a chilly single-digit start to a day when temps would rise well into the 30s under a blazing sun. We grabbed Skidog away from the booth for a couple of runs and headed out. Eddie figured to ski the far side of Sanctuary, which I'd expected to be about as good as anything on its north-facing aspect. We were both wrong. What we found instead was dust on crust, and the subsurface was uneven with the previous week's light tracks frozen in place. It was survival skiing. I started to second-guess the wisdom of skiing a mountain entirely below 9,000 feet after the week's weather roller coaster.
We were going to try something else out in Cobabe Canyon, but Eddie noted that few people were getting out of the Lightning Ridge snowcat so it was probably worth seeing what was over there. We had a three-cat wait, during which Eddie's other D.C. guest, Kirk, arrived on a snow machine. Eddie wanted to ski the north-facing trees directly below the cat drop. I, on the other hand, wanted to traverse way, way out beyond the ski area boundary into Bluebell. Eddie thought that it was too far to traverse. We agreed to part ways, and meet up at the Paradise lift. Houseguest Peter was the only one willing to follow.
We headed out...and out...and out. With each passing yard, more tracks split off below, until eventually I was breaking trail for the final few hundred yards. I gingerly stepped across the rocks exposed by the wind at the ski area boundary, and eased out onto the wind lip guarding the edge of Bluebell. Not one track! \
/
I asked Peter to step back as I jumped up and down on the wind lip as hard as I could. Rock solid. Looking further up into the bowl prompted no concerns. Despite the bowl's gentle slope I also eased across the wind lip and ski cut the slope. No worries. We identified an island of safety down the slope, developed a ski protocol and I dropped in as Peter had the camera rolling.
No word applies other than "divine." Missing was the erratic subsurface of Sanctuary, replaced by a solid, supportable base that was billiard-table smooth. It was topped by dry boot-top snow that had been sifted by the wind across the ski area's boundary ridge, deeper than anything else that we'd find all day. I let 'em fly, carving my symmetrical signature into the virgin slope. I pulled up to the previously identified safety zone and myself filmed as Peter dropped the cornice and repeated my turns side-by-side. I noticed a warning displayed in the viewfinder that it was time to clean the tape heads, but lacking any supplies to do so I let the tape roll. We high-fived one another for our score, but Peter indicated that it looked more like he was shooting stills than video.
"You used the red button, right?" I asked.
"No, I used the normal shutter button."
#-o
We continued to work the right side of the drainage, dropping turns and traversing right before ever reaching the terrain trap of the gully floor. More than once we crossed steeper slopes one at a time, keeping a wary eye on our partner. I fortunately recalled the point of no return from a run here two years earlier, and traversed to the right to return to the south side of the ridge barely in time to reach the bottom of the Paradise chair, Powder Mountain's lowest point. We negotiated the open creekbed and boarded the lift.
We managed to contact Eddie and the others by cell phone from the chair, and reconvened as we got off the lift. Eddie said that they had some good turns in the trees at the top of their run, but after that it was far less appealing. Peter and I sang the virtues of our run until the others relented, save for Greg who wanted to grab a bite to eat. We bought more cat vouchers at the ticket window, picked up Skidog and Bluehouse owner Jared and headed back to Sunset to return to the cat pickup. Finding a two-cat wait this time, we chatted with others and fondled several Bluehouse models before boarding the cat.
I found myself riding up with two Maine kids, Sugarloaf gate-chasers around 11 or 12 years old who were skiing with their parents. From conversation I realized that these kids could surely ski quite well as they began pumping me for Utah beta, including regarding Lightning Ridge.
"Is there any sick stuff up here?" one asked me.
"Well," I replied, "Define 'sick' for me, please."
I explained that the best snow I found was off the traverse leading north from the James Peak saddle. "But," I cautioned, "if you reach a ridge with a prominent wind lip you've gone too far. That's the ski area boundary, and there's no patrol or avalanche control beyond that point. If you follow that traverse you may see me head out there, but don't follow me beyond that ridge under any circumstances."
The boys agreed with a hearty, yet solemn nod.
We disembarked the cat and regrouped, and one by one Peter, Skidog, Jared, Eddie, Kirk and Mike followed me out my previously established traverse to the boundary ridge, drooling at the hundreds of acres before us with only two sets of tracks, Peter's and mine from the run before. We again held a long discussion and identified our first island of safety, and developed plans to ski the run one at a time. Peter took the Canon camera again, noting the all-important red button this time, and I skied down to the safety zone, taking a wider line into the center of the bowl for a more sustained fall line. Pulling up after some 40 or 50 turns, I pulled out the DV cam and started filming the first of our group.
There seemed to be a lot of silhouettes, though, standing up on the ridgeline. Too many. By the time our third skier dropped in, there were suddenly 4 or 5 bodies arcing turns down the slope. This wasn't the plan! It was then that I realized that it was the two kids from Maine and their family. ](*,)
Everyone pulled up to where I was standing. I cautioned the Mainers that they were out of bounds, and gave them a few quick comments on safe route selection. Eventually, though, our group began to outpace them, and by the time we reached the point of no return I could no longer see them in the rear view mirror. Skiing any lower in the drainage would mean skiing below the resort, and already this winter there's been at least one visitor who's spent the night out there. We hung out until the Mainers showed up, and I explained that they needed to follow our tracks to the right to get back in time.
By the time we rode Paradise and got back to the top of Timberline, Eddie decided to "end his day on a high note." Jared and Skidog needed to get back to the Bluehouse booth. Mike was having some challenges with his tele bindings, and we still hadn't found Greg after his lunch. Peter and I were thus on our own, and we enjoyed a high-speed cruiser down to Hidden Lake before setting off again for Cobabe Canyon.
I wanted to find more untracked with a smooth subsurface, so we poled, skated, glided and traversed way, way out this time along the summit snowmobile trail, not dropping into Cobabe until we reached the point where northern exposure transitions to western. This was home to some perfect low-angle aspens, and we just carved lazy arcs before traversing right to find another line, carving more lazy arcs before traversing again, over and over until we hit the catch road leading back to Paradise, which we boarded by 3:50 with a mere 10 minutes to spare. It was around 4:15 by the time we reconvened with all of the others in the parking lot. We'd skied pretty much open to close without even stopping for a bathroom break.
Peter and I drove down to Valley Market in Eden and picked up a six-pack and some chips and salsa to bring to Eddie's house, where not only our group gathered but also several others, including tele skier and Eddie's caretaker Paul, who had the most thorough goggle tan I've ever seen to contrast with his long, flowing white hair. There were also two couples from Connecticut (including one Okemo patroller). Beer and conversation flowed as we watched each other's home ski videos, including some footage from Big Red Cats, Monashee Powder and various other B.C. heli and cat skiing operators. Good times before Peter and I had to peel ourselves away to drive back to Salt Lake.
That warning I'd seen in the DV cam's viewfinder, however, was critical. All of the footage I filmed was corrupted as it recorded to tape, and the one scene where Peter managed to find the video button on the Canon was a disappointment as he had a hard time keeping me within the frame. Thus, no photos or video to record what turned out to be an exceptional day in the Ogden-area mountains.
I had a houseguest this weekend out to ski from Connecticut. Planning for Saturday, though, presented a challenge. Thursday night's storm was tracking north, which meant that the further north we'd go the more likely they'd get more snow, but a rain event earlier in the week drizzled up to 8,000 feet and warm days and freezing nights had further screwed with our snowpack. I wasn't convinced that there'd be enough snow to bury the concrete beneath.
I called Eddie the Texan around mid-day on Friday to inquire about conditions. "I'm standing in line for the cat," Eddie reported. "I just took one run out in Powder Country and I'm not making that mistake again!"
Something in my head, though, told me that we could find the goods up there. Skidog was helping Bluehouse out with a demo day on Saturday, and my houseguest had never skied anywhere in Utah outside of Alta. We'd give it a try.
We hit the road at 7:15, and by 8:15 we were sitting down to eggs and pancakes in Eddie's kitchen with passholder Greg and Mike from D.C. By 9:15 we were booting up under cloudless skies, a chilly single-digit start to a day when temps would rise well into the 30s under a blazing sun. We grabbed Skidog away from the booth for a couple of runs and headed out. Eddie figured to ski the far side of Sanctuary, which I'd expected to be about as good as anything on its north-facing aspect. We were both wrong. What we found instead was dust on crust, and the subsurface was uneven with the previous week's light tracks frozen in place. It was survival skiing. I started to second-guess the wisdom of skiing a mountain entirely below 9,000 feet after the week's weather roller coaster.
We were going to try something else out in Cobabe Canyon, but Eddie noted that few people were getting out of the Lightning Ridge snowcat so it was probably worth seeing what was over there. We had a three-cat wait, during which Eddie's other D.C. guest, Kirk, arrived on a snow machine. Eddie wanted to ski the north-facing trees directly below the cat drop. I, on the other hand, wanted to traverse way, way out beyond the ski area boundary into Bluebell. Eddie thought that it was too far to traverse. We agreed to part ways, and meet up at the Paradise lift. Houseguest Peter was the only one willing to follow.
We headed out...and out...and out. With each passing yard, more tracks split off below, until eventually I was breaking trail for the final few hundred yards. I gingerly stepped across the rocks exposed by the wind at the ski area boundary, and eased out onto the wind lip guarding the edge of Bluebell. Not one track! \
/ I asked Peter to step back as I jumped up and down on the wind lip as hard as I could. Rock solid. Looking further up into the bowl prompted no concerns. Despite the bowl's gentle slope I also eased across the wind lip and ski cut the slope. No worries. We identified an island of safety down the slope, developed a ski protocol and I dropped in as Peter had the camera rolling.
No word applies other than "divine." Missing was the erratic subsurface of Sanctuary, replaced by a solid, supportable base that was billiard-table smooth. It was topped by dry boot-top snow that had been sifted by the wind across the ski area's boundary ridge, deeper than anything else that we'd find all day. I let 'em fly, carving my symmetrical signature into the virgin slope. I pulled up to the previously identified safety zone and myself filmed as Peter dropped the cornice and repeated my turns side-by-side. I noticed a warning displayed in the viewfinder that it was time to clean the tape heads, but lacking any supplies to do so I let the tape roll. We high-fived one another for our score, but Peter indicated that it looked more like he was shooting stills than video.
"You used the red button, right?" I asked.
"No, I used the normal shutter button."
#-o
We continued to work the right side of the drainage, dropping turns and traversing right before ever reaching the terrain trap of the gully floor. More than once we crossed steeper slopes one at a time, keeping a wary eye on our partner. I fortunately recalled the point of no return from a run here two years earlier, and traversed to the right to return to the south side of the ridge barely in time to reach the bottom of the Paradise chair, Powder Mountain's lowest point. We negotiated the open creekbed and boarded the lift.
We managed to contact Eddie and the others by cell phone from the chair, and reconvened as we got off the lift. Eddie said that they had some good turns in the trees at the top of their run, but after that it was far less appealing. Peter and I sang the virtues of our run until the others relented, save for Greg who wanted to grab a bite to eat. We bought more cat vouchers at the ticket window, picked up Skidog and Bluehouse owner Jared and headed back to Sunset to return to the cat pickup. Finding a two-cat wait this time, we chatted with others and fondled several Bluehouse models before boarding the cat.
I found myself riding up with two Maine kids, Sugarloaf gate-chasers around 11 or 12 years old who were skiing with their parents. From conversation I realized that these kids could surely ski quite well as they began pumping me for Utah beta, including regarding Lightning Ridge.
"Is there any sick stuff up here?" one asked me.
"Well," I replied, "Define 'sick' for me, please."
I explained that the best snow I found was off the traverse leading north from the James Peak saddle. "But," I cautioned, "if you reach a ridge with a prominent wind lip you've gone too far. That's the ski area boundary, and there's no patrol or avalanche control beyond that point. If you follow that traverse you may see me head out there, but don't follow me beyond that ridge under any circumstances."
The boys agreed with a hearty, yet solemn nod.
We disembarked the cat and regrouped, and one by one Peter, Skidog, Jared, Eddie, Kirk and Mike followed me out my previously established traverse to the boundary ridge, drooling at the hundreds of acres before us with only two sets of tracks, Peter's and mine from the run before. We again held a long discussion and identified our first island of safety, and developed plans to ski the run one at a time. Peter took the Canon camera again, noting the all-important red button this time, and I skied down to the safety zone, taking a wider line into the center of the bowl for a more sustained fall line. Pulling up after some 40 or 50 turns, I pulled out the DV cam and started filming the first of our group.
There seemed to be a lot of silhouettes, though, standing up on the ridgeline. Too many. By the time our third skier dropped in, there were suddenly 4 or 5 bodies arcing turns down the slope. This wasn't the plan! It was then that I realized that it was the two kids from Maine and their family. ](*,)
Everyone pulled up to where I was standing. I cautioned the Mainers that they were out of bounds, and gave them a few quick comments on safe route selection. Eventually, though, our group began to outpace them, and by the time we reached the point of no return I could no longer see them in the rear view mirror. Skiing any lower in the drainage would mean skiing below the resort, and already this winter there's been at least one visitor who's spent the night out there. We hung out until the Mainers showed up, and I explained that they needed to follow our tracks to the right to get back in time.
By the time we rode Paradise and got back to the top of Timberline, Eddie decided to "end his day on a high note." Jared and Skidog needed to get back to the Bluehouse booth. Mike was having some challenges with his tele bindings, and we still hadn't found Greg after his lunch. Peter and I were thus on our own, and we enjoyed a high-speed cruiser down to Hidden Lake before setting off again for Cobabe Canyon.
I wanted to find more untracked with a smooth subsurface, so we poled, skated, glided and traversed way, way out this time along the summit snowmobile trail, not dropping into Cobabe until we reached the point where northern exposure transitions to western. This was home to some perfect low-angle aspens, and we just carved lazy arcs before traversing right to find another line, carving more lazy arcs before traversing again, over and over until we hit the catch road leading back to Paradise, which we boarded by 3:50 with a mere 10 minutes to spare. It was around 4:15 by the time we reconvened with all of the others in the parking lot. We'd skied pretty much open to close without even stopping for a bathroom break.
Peter and I drove down to Valley Market in Eden and picked up a six-pack and some chips and salsa to bring to Eddie's house, where not only our group gathered but also several others, including tele skier and Eddie's caretaker Paul, who had the most thorough goggle tan I've ever seen to contrast with his long, flowing white hair. There were also two couples from Connecticut (including one Okemo patroller). Beer and conversation flowed as we watched each other's home ski videos, including some footage from Big Red Cats, Monashee Powder and various other B.C. heli and cat skiing operators. Good times before Peter and I had to peel ourselves away to drive back to Salt Lake.
That warning I'd seen in the DV cam's viewfinder, however, was critical. All of the footage I filmed was corrupted as it recorded to tape, and the one scene where Peter managed to find the video button on the Canon was a disappointment as he had a hard time keeping me within the frame. Thus, no photos or video to record what turned out to be an exceptional day in the Ogden-area mountains.
