Easter Sunday Solo Tour

The week leading up to Easter Sunday has been a hard one for me personally.  Stress, irritation, frustration, and depression had worn me out.  Even the massive powder dump of April Fool's wasn't enough to shake me out of this funk.  I knew that I needed to get this issue off my mind and move on past it.  I decided that it was time for me to make my first solo backcountry tour. 

I determined that the necessity of staying safe, understanding conditions and snow factors, terrain assessment, being alone relying solely on myself, knowing that my beacon would only be good for a body recovery, and the physical demands of the area I was to ski, skin, and hike, was enough to be able to get over the past two weeks and to move on in life. 

I did choose wisely as I knew conditions were stabilized and would remain overall good for the day.  In the end, this tour proved to be what I needed in coming to terms with the external and internal issues that were affecting me: it was a definite success with lots of plan changes.  Solo touring has opened my eyes to a new realm and new understanding of myself and the snowpack. 

I definitely foresee more of this in the future.

Ben Lomond Tour

Matt is now back in town for the time being. How is that good for me? I now have a local touring buddy. We had an impromptu ski tour this weekend up to Ben Lomond. I have never ever summitted Ben Lomond prior to this day. I've been up to the saddle and have played around many times in that area, but never topped the peak. That became an added bonus to the skiing.

The skin up was long and uh, long. The one thing that I don't like about touring in the Ogden area is the approaches. They are very long and flat before you start to actually ascend a slope. Matt and I came in through the north side. As we finally got to the high ridge, the wind started howling with gusts over 80 mph. That was absolutely brutal on the boot pack to the top.

We kind of slacked taking 4 hours to get to the summit. As we got to the top and I had a chance to look at the South Face Couloir. I got so excited as I was mere feet away from a season long goal, a goal that originated at the end of last season. I tried to convince Matt that we should drop the beautiful line, to test our ability. Matt stated that he didn't have enough juice in him to make the dangerous run, plus it was later in the day than is recommended for that line.

I had to accept the fact that I most likely would not attain that goal this season. However, seeing the line from the top helped me visualize my eventual descent, fortifying my confidence of success.

Matt and I skied two differing lines, but still close enough to see and rescue each other if need be. I watched Matt make his way to his first planned safe spot. Once he stopped, I dropped in. Here's my thought train that ensued: Ski cut hard to the left - two inch deep wind slab broke free but only ran 16 feet - I need to do one more cut before I feel good; Hard ski cut to the right - boot deep powder now, no signs of instability - Oh yeah let's get going; First turn - smooth and deep; Second turn - wind scowered hard pack - Oh crap hold tight; Third turn - punching wind crust - Hold on tight; Forth turn I'm going mach 9 this isn't going to be good - back to boot deep powder - Oh s#!t we're going down. At that point I was launched forward over the "handlebars" going head first into the snowpack. Man this is going to be tough.

The line was intense, not because the terrain was extremely steep, but because the spatial variability of the snowpack and quality was so drastic. Also my previously fractured fibula was a bit sore.

After we made our 1800 foot descent we had a lot of traversing and bushwhacking to get back to the car. We both were now getting drained as we spent most of our energy on the way up.

It was a good challenging tour that kept me in the realm of humility as I felt worked. It's good to have days like this every so often.

I apologize for the pic quality; I forgot my camera and used my iPhone for the documentation.

Tons of possibilities

Matt pushing through high winds

It all looks so good

The steep bootpack through 80 mph gusts

Ogden from Ben Lomond Peak

The South Face Couloir from the Summit

I think I'm stoked

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

It's About Time........ Time to Set Those Most Important Goals

Yeah, yeah, yeah...... I know: It has definitely been a long time since my last post. With this post I am going to outline the goals which mean the most to me: Winter Time Fun. After I detail the dreams, desires, goals, and "have-to's" that keep me going through the day, I'll brief you with a status update on what has happened since my last post.

Goals for the 2008-2009 Winter Season: (Not in any particular order, just as they pop in my mind, but important non-the-less)

1. Ski at least 45 days; includes both front country and backcountry
   
2. Ski at least 800,000 vertical feet (yes I have a watch that tracks this; last year about 600,000 feet)
   
3. Ski the the south face/couloir of Ben Lomond from the peak w/Christian
   
4. Ski Little Superior on a good powder day w/Christian: Round 2 = my terms
   
5. Get Avalanche Level 1 Certification
6. Get Avalanche Level 2 Certification
   
7. Huck a certain cliff on Banana Dayz in Big Cottonwood Canyon
8. Huck a certain cliff on Honeycomb Cliffs in Big Cottonwood Canyon
9. Drop Corbet's Couloir at Jackson Hole
10. Learn a backflip
11. Ski Silverton Mountain
12. Ski Monte Cristo in Little Cottonwood Canyon
13. Film one or two short ski mountaineering films w/Christian
    
14. Call in sick to work at least once for a weekday storm dump of 15 inches or more
15. Ascend all 3 pitches of Malan's Waterfall
    
16. Solo Willard Peak ice drainage at least 3 times
17. Take an ice climbing trip to Ouray, CO
18. Find a super hot Backcountry Babe to date (that's to satisfy your wishes Mother)

Ice Climbing in Cody, WY February 2007

So this is all I have for now, but trust you me, this list will be growing. It's getting late and my brain is ready to shut down, but before I turn in for the night, I need to give you that status update.

I have been quite busy, not just with playing, but work has picked up. Our new fiscal year started October 1 and so ended our period of performance for our last contract. Now onto 2 new contracts with a lot more taskings. These new contracts allowed for the UID team to grow from 9 individuals in Latyon, UT/Hill Air Force Base, to a team of 32 at Hill AFB, Peterson AFB (Fort Collins, CO), Tinker AFB (Oklahoma City, OK), Robins AFB (Warner Robins, GA), and Tobyhanna Army Depot (Scranton, PA). With all of this growth my responsibility has also grown. Because I did the initial ground work for 2 of the new tasks prior to the new hirings, I have been put as the Junior Project Lead for 2 teams. It's fun to finally have work and short suspense deadlines. Really my work load has gone up about 500%. I have already put in 41 hours this week, and I have decided to work tomorrow on my Regular Day Off (RDO) to finish some work.

But honestly, I'm finally having fun. I have no problem putting in the time now because the winter is coming and everyone knows that I will be travelling and having "sick days" frequently.

I have joined a Senior Hockey League and have played 3 games. Right now we're #1 with 3 wins and 35 goals for. I have 1 goal and 5 assists. Yes it is quite apparent that my team is stacked. I will admit that I played absolutely horrible last game. It is actually really hard to breath when your head is up your .......... well you get the idea.

I also started my last indoor soccer season tonight. We played really bad. We only had 2 subs and we had 2 new guys on the team. We did manage to win 11-0, even though I got beat bad 3 times on defense. I should have had 3 goals tonight but I did get 3 assists. That's not bad for the sweeper.

Ski Mountaineering Epic

Friday was a crazy day. It was a valuable day. This is a day that has given me much experience and knowledge. It calmed my fears and allowed me to grow. It was a day of ski mountaineering, a day that would be called “epic.”

I had the day off and I decided to go skiing. That was a good decision because Little Cottonwood Canyon received over a foot of fresh snow. I went out with Christian again. We were skinning up to Little Superior Peak by 8:30. We had pretty good conditions with good cloud coverage to keep the sun off the snow but it was still a little warm that day. That ended up hurting us a bit later.

The skin up to Little Superior took about 90 minutes. We decided to ski the backside, skin up, and ski down Little Superior. Christian started to check the conditions. He did a ski cut along the top of the shot that we were going to do. This set off a small wet slide that traveled maybe 30 meters at a slow rate. We expected this and decided that we were in business. Christian headed down first and then paused at the bottom signaling for me to go. It had been a couple of weeks since I had skied and I could tell. I didn’t feel as comfortable as I normally did. This was just our warm up run and I needed it. I couldn’t believe how fast I was going on the snow; the snow was heavy. I just felt so out of rhythm. We decided not to go all the way to the valley floor but to skin up the ridge just to our right and get back up to Little Superior.

As we were skinning up this ridge, the face looked so sweet that we decided to ski it. Christian started out and made a few turns down the ridge heading into the trees, the safest route. On his third turn he sent a huge wet slide off. It was about 10 meters wide, traveling about 30 mph (and gaining), and went all the way to the valley floor. We immediately decided to bag that run.

We skinned back up to the top of the ridge and hiked up to Little Superior again. This time was a little harder. The ambient heat had started to melt the snow on top of the knife blade ridge we were hiking. This made it extremely slippery and we were walking over exposed cliffs on either side of us. There must have been inversion set in because the peak, at 10900 feet, was warmer than the valley floor at 8800 feet. As we were walking up to our drop in spot, our visibility went to about 50 feet. That sucked, as we needed to get down before the snow conditions worsened even more. It would have been even harder to see the exposed rocks and cliffs in those conditions. We decided to wait it out but being ready to move at anytime. However, we had decided on hiking the ridge back till we arrived at a safe descent as a back up plan.

Fifteen minutes later our white out started to break. The snow was horribly rotten by this time of the day. Christian started out. Every turn he made sent off a wet slide. That was good for one thing and bad for a couple of reasons. It was good because the wet sliding snow exposed any barely hidden, underlying rock. Now we could see where not to ski. Even though we would be skiing only a turn or two at a time, hitting one of those rocks on a 45 plus degree slope could send one cart wheeling down the slope over some cliffs. The first bad part of a wet slide was that it was a wet slide on a hanging snowfield, meaning that it was suspended stacked snow on cliffs, not a mountain slope. A large enough wet slide could take out the hanging snowfield. The second bad part was now we had only the variable rotten bed layer to ski on.

So Christian skis down, clearly the way and taking his time. I was watching for natural slides above him. When it came for me to drop in I was quite hesitant. I was extremely nervous; you could tell in my breathing, which was shaky and irregular. I knew that I was out of shape for making demanding tele-turns; I was afraid of making a mistake and ending up tumbling towards a cliff; I was afraid of sending a big slide towards Christian. My heart raced as I made my first few turns, trying to stay in the path that Christian cleared to prevent sending down a new slide. I took my time as I tried doing jump tele-turns down a steep slope with exposed rocks. Once I made it down a little cliff band to Christian, I had calmed down. My legs were so exhausted. We continued down the mountain through the trees, not stopping until we reached the road.

We gave an exhausted yell of triumph; we made it down without getting hurt and we were out of danger. As we looked back up to see our descent, we saw that we caused the whole right side of Superior to slide bit by bit. We knew that we had just survived an "epic."

I have not had an experience that was more technically demanding than this day. I am very much grateful that the conditions were less than favorable and that things came about as they did. Now I will be able to remain calm when the situation quickly deteriorates on the mountainside. I now have a confidence that I can make it down a rock exposed slope in less than perfect conditions when needed. And confidence, not cockiness, is a key requirement in ski mountaineering.