The best December in years continued to provide great snow conditions in the Wasatch Mountains. The week started with a bitter cold bluebird pow day in the backcountry.
The temperature was -9 Fahrenheit when we started touring up Grizzly Gulch last Sunday. Coming off a massive storm, the snow conditions were incredible.
We managed to bear the subzero temps long enough to get three laps in before heading home to try and warm up. It was for sure one of those classic Utah pow days.
On Tuesday, reports were coming in on a massive avalanche in the Birthday Chutes in the upper White Pine drainage. Two skiers were caught but luckily both of them walked away from the incident.
An avalanche like this really makes you take a step back and reevaluate things. There had been a mention of the persistent weak layers in the snowpack in the advisory that morning, but it didn't seem like they would be reactive since the snowpack had time to gain strength after the previous storm.
Many people, myself included, did not see any signs of instability while out and about on Sunday. I'm not going to say that the party who triggered the slide made a poor terrain choice on that day. It could have happened to anyone. The thing with deep slab avalanches is that they are sleeping giants. You never know when they might wake up. It comes down to your level of acceptable risk.
After giving the snowpack another day to settle after the weekend storm, Tanner Crow and I decided to get out for a bigger tour and ride the Hallway Couloir. We took the long way up Cardiff Fork in Big Cottonwood Canyon so we could scope out a few other lines for future missions.
Despite marginal snow conditions, it was a great tour. We opted to boot up from the bottom due to the known difficulty of finding the entrance from the top.
The best part of the line is probably "the tube" at the bottom. Once you exit the chute, there is this long, wide gully that is perfect for making huge and fast turns. It was a classic line on a great day in the Wasatch.
Finally, for those of you that haven't seen it, the first episode of mine and Tanner Crow's project
Uphill Skiing Only: A Splitboard Adventure is up on YouTube. Please check it out and share it with your friends.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I3cP3NNPNE
We'll be working on this throughout the season so stay tuned for more!
