Week in Review: Above Average

It was a productive week in the Wasatch. A big storm delivered two feet of pow during the night of the 8th, bringing our season total above 500 inches for the first time in six years. Based on Alta's 30 year average of 500 inches, we are now officially having an above average winter. We had a string of five consecutive bad snow years, including the worst in Utah history (14/15). Those bad seasons make this one that much sweeter. It really has been an incredible year. The lift served season is winding down. Most resorts will be closed after Sunday. There's still plenty of snow in the high terrain, though. Touring should be really good for several more months. Before our 24 inch reset last Saturday night, Tanner Crow and I crossed off a Wasatch classic, the Y Couloir. The adventure scale was definitely a 9 out of 10 that day. Our morning started with wading across the frigid waters of Little Cottonwood Creek. Once we got our boots back on and did some bushwhacking we started booting up this classic couloir. There are two sections of the chute that are melted out and required some rock/waterfall scrambling. We ended up bailing just short of the top due to increasingly heavy snowfall and being completely soaking wet. 01.TannerCrow.CreekCrossing.LittleCottonwoodCanyon 02.TannerCrow.YCouloir.LittleCottonwoodCanyon The ride down was super fun. I think we were both over it by the time we down climbed over the rocks and waded across the creek again, though. I don't think I've ever been that wet on a tour before. At least neither of us fell while wading the creek. That would've been brutal. 03.TannerCrow.YCouloir.LittleCotton Sunday we awoke to 24 inches of fresh. It was one of the best lift served pow days at Snowbird this season. Tony, Ally, and I pretty much timed all of the terrain openings perfectly. It's always nice getting multiple glory runs in one day. The notable development of the day was that there was a backcountry closure on Mt.Superior all day. This made it a pretty easy decision on where to tour Monday. We decided on riding Little Superior instead of going for the peak. 04.TonyAadland.LittleSuperior.Alta.Utah 05.TonyAadland.LittleSuperior.Alta.Utah 06.TonyAadland.LittleSuperior Monday morning was cold and bluebird. Perfect touring conditions. It seemed like everyone in Salt Lake was heading for the summit of Mt. Superior. That was my first time going on the Superior ridgeline past Two Trees. Everyone always says how gnarly that ridge gets, but you don't really understand how gnarly it is till you're on it yourself. I definitely psyched myself out at times but was eventually able to power through the more difficult sections. It felt good to overcome those negative thoughts going through my mind. The best part of the day was everyone ahead of Tony and I were going for the peak. We had already decided the day before to ride Little. We had a blank canvas below us all the way to the road! My slope cut produced a large sluff that ran to just above the choke in Little Superior Bowl. Other than that, stability felt really good. We scored an incredible untracked pow run. I think in terms of snow quality and location it was my best line of the season. 07.Cheers.LittleSuperior.Apres We scored one more pow run on Tourin' Tuesday. Since then it's been full on spring conditions. We've had a good freeze/thaw cycle which should lead to good corn. Hopefully we get a few more pow days this spring before the season ends.