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.

To WURL or not to WURL

So I've been thinking about the WURL a lot laterly. First because Jared did it on skies (WURLOS) and because it seem like an excellent training tool for the W100. WURL stands for Wasatch Ultimate Ridge Link Up. I haven't really done my research on it like I should, but basically you start somewhere either in Ferguson or Broads and climb to Twin Peaks then hit them all to Twin Lakes Pass, then you turn South to Alta and then Turn West again and hit them all to lone peak and exit out Bells. Its doesn't seem to be set in stone the course, but that's the basic idea. I had two days off left of my vacation so I figured I'd go up and try it out and see if its plausible for someone like me. So I packed up a small pack with enough goodies for 2 days out (2 days of suffering, not comfort) with just a few items.

I planned on leaving at 300am, but by the time I was packed it was midnight so I set the alarm for 400am. All in all I started hiking at 5:38am, probably 30 minutes to an hour too late, but I didn't expect to finish the whole thing in one day.

After taking a different route to the summit of Twin(11330), it was about 3 hours in, 1 hour later than I had hoped. A short photo and I was off.
Twin I might add is a bit of a rip off because you have to summit both peaks and it takes a good 20-30 minutes to hit them both, but you only get one.


I also got the peak north of twin(10800), at the top of Stairs Gulch. Then moving on to Sunrise (11275) their was one extra(11200) in between and some serious scrambling. Sunrise has some full on climbing I would give about a 5.4 with some lose rocks and ending in a choss pile (like every other peak). It turned out to be not too bad except the exposure, and the running shoes. Then moving down Sunrise turned out to be the biggest thrill of the day as it was extremely difficult to transition through the saddle to Dromedary. In retrospect I could have chosen a better line but I'd give it down climbing 5.7 with lose rocks and dirt EVERYWHERE.

A short moment to describe the traveling. Its like taking 1000 granite tiles and stacking them on top of a low pitch roof, on top of the Sears Tower. This is about the consistency of the rock on all of these peaks with short burst of good stuff. So you move agonizingly slow, and carefully place every foot and hand most of the time. A slide could be fatal a good portion of the time. I would describe this as having a 'high objective hazard' or a hazard that you can't do anything about. I do have time climbing choss piles, but not piles of it, so this was pretty stressful for me.

After the summit of Dromedary I got sucked into a trail that led down towards Lake Blanch. Turns out it was the wrong trail so I ended up crossing a Quartzite slab, that also happened to be the run off from remaining snow. Another very stressful moment. then going around to the decent side I reach the knife edge ridge, choss pile. Similar to the one on the Pfeiffer, but longer, chossier, and maybe even higher off the deck. After a moment of thinking I decided I'd had enough and the payoff wasn't worth taking yet another risk crossing this ridge. If I came off with a boulder it would mean serious injury, or more likely death.

I don't mind crossing some sections like this, but when you've been doing it for the last 3 hours the risk becomes too much. I decide then that I wouldn't come back to the WURL, because of the high danger associated with this first section. As time has pasted it seems less and less, so who knows I might come back. I'm not sure what the answer is, but it seems like a rope would be too big of a burden. Maybe climbing shoes and a partner, I don't have an answer. Either way the risk is pretty big on this one. I would much rather take a 40 foot wipper than fall off of one of those things.

I down climbed from Dromedary on the trail I noticed down to Blanch lake and at first was thinking about heading back up on far lookers left of Mill B South to the back side of the saddle between Superior and Monte Cristo. Not a bad plan, until you figure out how high above the lake you really are.


I would estimate it took me 2-3 hours to get from Dromedary to Lake Blanch, even with a sick section of Glissading.

Again the down climb was difficult and very slow, but reasonably safe. Then climbing back up would take a while to because of the brush, rivers and indirect route. I was at hour 9 by now and decide to just bail because I was so far behind where I should be.

If you where on ski's, I think this would be the choice because it would only take 10 minutes down and maybe 1 hour back up.

All in all car to car time was 10 hours with 5 peaks, all over 11000ft and about 7000ft of vertical and somewhere in the range of 8 or 9 miles. As of now, its not to WURL