Friday, January 30, 2009

Kessler West Couloir Tour

This winter has been an odd one. We have not had the cold temperatures and frequent storms that please us powder hounds. Today is my RDO (Regular Day Off) and I'm taking advantage of it.

Christian and I met at his house at 5:30 am to ski the an aspect of Kessler Peak in Big Cottonwood Canyon. I was feeling quite stoked as the snow pack settled and stabilized. Christian isn't getting out as much anymore due to having a 5 month old baby boy that is never satisfied and always throws a fit.

We pull up to the Argenta slide path to 4 cars in front of us. There are already five headlamps on the way up. We are okay with this because there are plenty of options off the top of Keesler. Christian and I smashed out the 3500 vertical foot approach in 2 1/2 hours. With my new pivot touring binding, I'm able to keep up with Christian a lot easier than last year. You must know that Christian is a monster of a hiker, being able to pound out approaches while breaking trail, setting new skin tracks like none other. Christian claims that it was my new mustache that gave me the strength to keep up with him.

The view was great and the weather beautiful. We came across a very, very large wind slab about 3 feet deep , who knows how wide, over 300 feet long, in the middle of Argenta. We skinned to the side of it for the most part, only having to cross it closer to the top where the slab wasn't as hard or pronounced. We were feeling suspect of the top area stability. We did a couple of compression tests on Argenta and got some pretty good instability results on the newly wind deposited snow. Those signs weren't looking good if we were to ski Argenta, but we were planning going over to the west face. These tests were done on the east face prior to making the ridge. They helped us pick out a more conservative skin route to stay out of the potential avalanche danger.

We make the ridge and decided to take a short break. This break gave us time to refuel, check snowpack stability, decide on our potential routes, number of descents, and finalize our game plan.

Break over, time to get to work. With Christian being the more experienced backcountry traveler, he led the way. But trust me, there was plenty of fresh lines awaiting us. Surprisingly to us, the couloir turned to a two-faced 3730 vertical foot descent of tricky conditions. The left side was soft and fluffy, while the right side was suncrusted and unbreakable.

I skied pretty horribly. I am not in condition for the backcountry. After a really long tour my legs are so blasted that I can't make the same turns as if I had a warm up run or two. Hopefully I'll get conditioned to the point where this isn't a problem. Anyhow, enjoy the following pictures.

Sunrise across the way


Upper Chute of Argenta


Raymond Peak


Christian smiling on the summit


Super Mustache


Cardiff Fork


Mill B


West Chute Entrance


Christian taking charge


Working the tight corridor


Christian steezing the pow


Surface Hoar on the apron

Thursday, January 29, 2009

New Look

I have been growing a beard since I got back to Utah from my Christmas visit in Wisconsin. I've grown sick of it and decided that it was time for a new look. The real reason for the new look is for my Jackson Hole ski pass picture. This is what came of my new look the first night.

Reverse Goatee


Yes I am serious


Time to get Rednecked out


But I definitely couldn't show up to work like this. Even though the VP loved my new look from Wednesday night, I had to look a little more professional than that. So I took it back to the '70's. I had a lot of double takes as I talked with coworkers.

A Man's Mustache


Oh Yes, Sexy


I knew you'd like it

Monday, January 12, 2009

Silverton Mountain Ski Trip: Not So Happy Birthday

So here's the scoop on the Silverton Mountain trip. I got arrested on my birthday. What happened? Well let's look into that a little more.

We started the morning bright and early with the first run hiking up as far as we could go. We were all stoked on being there and having a good time. So we are hiking on the boot pack (skis on our packs) and are behind and mixed in with a group that didn't have a guide with them. They walked under a rope that crossed the trail about 5 1/2 feet above the ground, doesn't have a sign stating guided only beyond that point, and we herd in right behind them. At this point we were were concerned that were crossed into a "guided only" area of the mountain. We didn't want to get into any trouble as we were skiing "unguided." This is a different type of a resort and there are a lot of rules left up to interpretation.

The sign at the top of the lift said our desired run was open, but didn't say if it was restricted to guided groups only or open to unguided skiers.

So the man in the front approaches the first mountain professional we see to clarify if we could ski our chosen run or not. He [the mountain professional], asks us which guide we were with and when we stated that we were unguided but wanted to check with him to make sure that we were allowed in this area, he grabs his radio, states that he has caught 4 poachers, and that he's sending them down to meet with the owner of the resort.

So we're kind of confused. We head down and meet a ski patroller that says we need to talk with the owner, that everything should be alright, and that once we explain our story, the owner should let us ski. So we meet the owner, tell him our story about 5 times, the tool asked us to retell it over and over, and then the sheriff's deputy shows up. Now we're detained, getting processed for "skiing out of bounds", and missing out on all the fun we intended on having for my birthday. I can't believe that this is going on. The owner clips our passes and walks away to talk to the deputy. As he walks back to us he says, "You guys are more than welcome to buy another pass and ski for the rest of the day."

EXCUSE ME?!?!
So you kick us off your mountain, call the sheriff on us, talk with us till the deputy shows up, clip our passes that we didn't even get to use, and now say that we can pay for another pass to ski? Who do you think you are you pompous rat fink tool?!?!

So as the deputy talks with me, he genuinely says "Happy Birthday" and wishes that he didn't have to give me this citation which the owner told us was a misdemeanor with an "up to $1000" fine. Plus it's a summons citation not a pay this freaking huge fine citation, which means we have to return back to Silverton in a month. That's about 450 miles away from Ogden. Not a good thing. Luckily my buddy Clint was there with us, a Master Sergeant in the Air Force. This is good because the deputy tells us that the county judge and other individuals are all retired military and really like those in the military. That means that they might let us off.

Now we're all dejected, don't want to pay for another pass from this Mickey Mouse operation, but want to ski. We head up to the Red mountain Pass and find some low angle terrain for a short tour. Why low angle? Because the avalanche danger was still considerable.

I had the most sour taste in my mouth. How is all this crap happening on my birthday. We kept joking about it and ripping on the tool of an owner to try to mitigate the pain and agitation that we were experiencing.

The next day we were "marked" individuals at the resort. When we pulled up the owner pointed us out to all the other employees and was chatting about us on the radio. Seeing our doomed state before us, we decided to pay another $50 to upgrade to a guided pass. To some the day up the skiing was good for 4 day old snow.

The extremely sucky thing was that I sprained my knee on the last run of the day. All this crap on what was supposed to be a celebration, turned my 27th birthday into a wretched weekend to remember. I will admit this: this will be a funny story in the future. I'll update you on what happens with the charges when things come about.

Trip Pics

My Birthday Present to Myself: Powder Skis


The Dejected Tour Party


The "Unjustly Charged"


Group Pow Wow


So Many Possibilities


Group Shot:
Clint, Justin, Jared, Dave, Me


Getting Ready to Drop


Hike 2 Pow Wow


Chutin' It


Open Turns