Skiing the white zone

Making backcountry skiing location choices isn't just about keeping yourself safe, its also about skiing the best snow you can get in the most efficient manner(OK, maybe not always efficient), with the least amount of damage to your gear. You can tell the difference between the newbs and the pro's based on the quality of there experience. Every day is different, so you really can't lay out a list of rules. If I did, I'm sure I would be hunted down like the bleeding baby seal in shark water.

This season these decision have been even more important, and your success could lead you to a good powder day, or a rocky dirt bed. One trick I picked up was skiing the white zones.... on the topo. The white zones define 'open areas' like fields, Meadows, land fills, and above tree line. In the Wasatch we don't really have much above tree line, but its an excellent way to judge a number of things. One great example is most avalanche reports have a break between above and below the tree line. (well, except the Wasatch). In this case I use it to determine the existence of snow that may be ski-able. Here is a most excellent route with great lines, close to the road, and a groomer exit, but don't tell too many of your friends or be sure to ski it when I'm not around.

Start in the Brighton Parking lot and either take a one ride up Milly (sissy) or skin to the Milly booter then boot to the top. Ski something on the North aspect of the upper ridge of Millicent, catch the lake skin track back to the East wolverine booter, then ski wolverine (in this case I skied the glade in fear of super steep snow sluffs over rocks.) Then a quick traverse up to Tuscarora for the Tuscarora chute. Followed by a monster traverse around Catherine's lake to Sunrise peak. Other than the groomer skin and ski, the entire route is above 9000ft.

Gropplanche!

It seems the skiing is starting to get pretty fierce out there these days and the motivation is getting thin. On Saturday I headed up solo to have a look at CoalPit #4 and all its glory. Turns out I'm not sure exactly how to get to it... no surprise. So I ski a fabulous coulair in the same region that hasn't seen tracks for a while. After skiing up sloppy wet snow (all good alpine starts have this right?) I notice a very unique snow surface up a head that I've never noticed before.



It has the look of a miniature river delta for lack of better words. Turns out its a gropplanche! How cool is that? Apparently so much gropple fell on Friday that it slide... but only in the way that gropple can slide... like sand or even a little like water creating a beautiful smooth, unconsolidated snow surface. A small note of interest is that snow, when in motion, does not take on the mechanical characteristics of water, but of something else entirely. I would spend more time on this subject but frankly I'm too tired after 3 nights of work. So skipping the explanation in between, this gropple avalanche was completely different than a normal one, it didn't slide the same way, it didn't settle the same way, and it sure didn't ski the same way. Once up into the slide path it looked more like the lower end of a glacier moving though a canyon on its way to the see. Totally cool... I guess if your a snow geek. Another analogy would be like one of those swimming pools full of plastic balls you remember as a kid? Same principle except steep and the balls are smaller...

The down side to this was that based on its complete lack of consolidation, you couldn't skin, and when booting you would sink to the bottom of the groppel and slide backwards on ball bearings. (a testament to why gropple is a bad bed surface) There was a small sun/temperature crust on top but was completely unsupportable. Just like in sand you would step down and the gropple would immediately fill in over your boot. I was trying to think what the best method for movement would be and skinning and booting where out, crampons- useless... What would one use? Maybe a paddle or flippers? Or one of those fancy Ordovox shovels that bends 90 degrees at the shovel http://en.ortovox.com/safety_products/shovels/cougar.html


The good news is that with enough weaving around you could usually find some old buried wet slab debris to walk on beneath the gropple. After a semi-successful boot the ski turned out to be pretty amusing. If you ever get the chance to ski on 36 inches of pure gropple--do it!

Oh and when you get to the Y and want to turn right, go left.

Experiencing the Obelesque

Most of this post will be pictures, because my personal photographer is pretty much a rockstar and takes excellent photos. Today was another beautiful cold day in the Wasatch filled with wind, new snow, clouds, Sun, and Solitude. Perfect. I don't know about you but I feel like we are having more of those days that are good powder days that its still snowing, but not too bad... like today. Its great for keeping the crowds down. (where else do you say that about the backcountry?) Even though the skiing was excellent, and I mean excellent, today was really about spending some time in the mountains. We spent hours skinning and just a few minutes skiing. We crossed 4 drainages and only skied about 3 lines. Granted one of those lines was big. If you read the forecast (and I hope you did: http://utahavalanchecenter.org/advisory/slc ) you would have noticed as I did that we have got some serious snow form this storm 24-28 inches, and after testing and evaluating the depth, i can say that its just about right. Densities where up today which caused me a little trouble, but it was definitely 'worth skiing.'


2 notes worthy of mention today are 1.)The Obelesque, and 2.)Hogums 200.


We where really just messing around and ended up on the ridge between Maybird and Hogum and decided we should skin to the top in Search of Hogum's 200. After reaching the top we noticed that not more than about 20 yards was the Obelesque. A unique rock feature that can be seen clearly from Maybird and always looks like a person, that never movers and is always watching. I have no idea the history behind it but it would be nice to learn. So we spent some time looking, touching, and photographing. There are also some stellar lines into Maybird from this location that I plan on skiing soon. After this we skirted the ridge in search of Hogum's 200. I'm personally not very familiar with this but my ski partner remembers clearly seeing it form the top of the Y. We looked for a long time and finally came up with a very nice slide path that we skied, as you can see in the pictures. Not sure if this was it or not, but it was definitely the highlight of the day. Big long run, good turns, deep snow, face shots, and snow covers glasses. A good day.