First Craging

Yesterday Dave and I post-holed into the Secret Garden area. There is still some snow. We needed tarps to cover the large puddles forming on top of the ice/slush so our crash pads would stay dry. We saw others out bouldering, and also heard someone crack climbing up higher on what looked like mostly dry rock. I'd say in a few more weeks of good weather and conditions will be perfect.

Rocks and creative skinning techniques

With a bit of a cessation in the snowfall earlier this month and the onset of predictable and stable snow conditions, (ski) Will and I opted for some chuting to break up the powder skiing.

With cloudy conditions up high, we choose a low elevation objective for our first exploit - a memorial couloir on Mt. Olympus. We had incredible luck with the weather, as temperatures that day rose above freezing, but 10,000 foot clouds kept the snow from becoming overheated which would have led to a hasty retreat.

Unsure of the approach, we avoided what looked to be a potential terrain trap in the lower Norths fork of Neff's canyon (it isn't), and instead detoured near the Chadbourne craig and crossed over into the main North's fork drainage via a saddle. Initially we had been planning to ski the shot to the climber's left of the Olympus couloir which was reputed to be the most skiable, but our view from the saddle revealed a very long, very aesthetic couloir beginning just north of the north summit (it was also closer and had already sluffed out, two additional benefits). We traversed in to the top of the apron (a corkscrew gully), and found ideal booting conditions in the gut of the couloir.There was a sandbox of graupel lining the bed surface, but otherwise, we quickly climbed about a thousand feet to a higher section of couloir that had not sluffed. This made a notable difference in our ability to boot, as postholes were suddenly waste deep, so we stomped out a spot above a tree, donned skis, and began some creative skinning. This usually involved about five paces followed by a kick turn (I was often grabbing the tip of my uphill ski while turning to make it easier to get it around - this didn't require bending over...). A few hundred more feet of skinning and a great many switch backs latter, we were at the top of a 50 foot wide 1700 vertical fool long couloir that stayed consistenly near 40 degrees in steepness (with the yet to be discovered apron, the line was to yield about 2,200 vertical).

Will and I leap frogged through the slightly treed upper third of the chute, then skied the beautiful and continuous lower 2/3rds. In lieu of a real picture, I snapped a camera phone shot of Will skiing the main couloir. Despite the soft slide debris, the low angle of the apron was a relief for our burning legs (lack of recent practice meant that it took me a while to get into a good pedal-hop turn groove, and Will briefly paused to point the bases of his skis up the chute at me). The apron also contained a rocky ice bulge, which required 20 feet of tips and tails side stepping followed by hopping and pointing skis straight down over 10 feet of water ice (another camera phone shot). Fun.
With cooler temps and stable snow, we naturally decided to ski the largest slide path in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Stairs Gulch the next weekend (just shy of 5,000 vertical). We approached via Bonkers as we did not want to spend any extra time in the gulch.

I had heard one second hand description of the run as "rocky", and wouldn't turn out to be let down. Stairs is an amazing slide path, underlain but massive amounts of rock which never allow the snow to pile deeply upon them. It's not a consistent pitch, but rather a series of gullies, rocky break overs, and rock slabs, with a creek bed finish. There was about a foot of generally wind effected powder over a crust or rock base (but it was nice and stable). Will snapped a shot of me in the mid section of the gulch, surrounded by some photogenic snow.
Stairs was definitely a unique run - not as good as Coalpit headwall, but definitely a worthwhile endeavor.