WURL/Playing Pachinko: Prematurely Terminated, Part I

In the movie Steep, I believe it's Lou Dawson who says something like, "You go to the mountains and partake of their good tidings and sometimes, you come home feeling blessed." For the first eight hours yesterday, I felt that's how the traverse/peak enchainment would end. The terrain was absolutely stunning and the skiing more than adventurous.

I met Bart and Jared at 2:00 AM at the BCC park n ride and we were skinning from the s-curves towards Broad's fork around 2:15. It was warm and moonless, but we could see the peaks above in quite some detail as the city light was magnified by the thin high clouds. Recent glide avalanches had left devastating debris piles through Broad's, which we quickly put behind us in spite of difficult travel conditions. There was a partial freeze at best and the surface was breakable. However, once at the Dromedary/Twin saddle, we were on familiar ground and made quick time through the rock step and up Twin's East Ridge.

Bart

Summited Twin exactly 3 hours after leaving the cars, right on our projected pace. Bart and Jared had put a ton of thought into the gear and did a great job modifying the Dynafit Low Tech binding to make climbing easier. They also put some thought into lighting and, voilà

I used the one on the right. It weighs a ton but is like a car headlight. Still, simul-skiing back down the East Ridge with Bart while Jared's light bobbed in the distance was pretty eery, especially since we knew cliff bands were out in the blackness on either side. While dark, I felt like a trespasser. Like the mountains barely tolerated our passage.

Here's a pic from a week ago to show our path. From the saddle in the bottom right, we worked south, around the back of the first peak, booted to it's summit, skied down to the saddle , and then skinned up the West Ridge of Sunrise (peak on left). Night eased into dawn as we were booting up the unnamed peak.

From the summit of Sunrise. Dromedary immediately east with Monte Cristo in background on far right.

The probable skiing crux of the day was the descent from Sunrise to the saddle at the top of Tanner's. We moved a couple times to the north or south, but mainly stayed right on the ridge line. It truly felt like "you fall, you die" terrain and I was at times, terrified. Not much to do though but keep chasing those guys.

A look back at the descent on the East Ridge of Sunrise.

Bart on the last bit before the saddle. Steep.

From here terrain mellowed slightly and the trip up Drom was a bit faster. We were moving well with the perceived crux behind us and I was hugely optimistic about our chances. Everything was beautiful.

A look back again at Twin and Sunrise

Bart somewhere on Drom's East Face

We zipped down and around the Sundial and worked our way up into the bowl north of Superior/Monte Cristo. On the way talking about staying on the ridge line longer to be able to ski the sky ramp and then using the Heart of Darkness to access Monte Cristo. Guess we'll have another chance to talk about that one.

Bart and Jared with MC and ramp in question in background

Bart

We tagged Monte Cristo then dropped off Superior's South Face and walked over to Alta where part II of the trip would begin. At this point it was just after 10:00 AM. A number of mechanical failures (the cord on my boots broke, I lost a basket on my whippet, I lost a lens from my sunglasses, I lost a ski while skinning) and poor snow for travel and skiing had probably taken their toll but I was still psyched. I could feel the fatigue beginning to mount, especially on steeper climbs, but we were going to make it.

Then, all momentum was lost. An Alta mountain host lady caught us skinning up towards Sugarloaf and ordered us to turn around and move out of bounds. A total of 30 people were skiing the whole mountain. We pleaded our case, but she threatened to call police and patrol and wouldn't budge until we turned tail. She was mean. This turned a 1.5 hour climb into a 3 hour climb as we skirted out of bounds toward Catherine's area and then stole back in, traversing under the Castle, hoping the rock would help conceal our presence.

Bart and Jared

After tagging Sugarloaf, the plan remained: Baldy, AF Twins, Red Stack, Red Baldy, White Baldy, Pheiff, Chipman, Bighorn, Lone Peak, and out Bell's.

Baldy was closed.

AF Twins...closed.

At Hidden Peak, we pleaded with patrol but they said come back tomorrow cause they'd be open then. We didn't even want to ski back into their areas but...closed. It would have been too dangerous by this time to wrap south, losing tons of elevation and then try to ascend the Twins. Alternatively, too stupid to head down to Scottie's losing thousands of feet, only to head back up to the Twins. In essence, we were stopped in our tracks by people who can only follow irrational orders and not make reasonable judgements on their own. The morning was a blessing, the afternoon a curse provided by the corruption of man.

I don't know if we could have finished the route if given free passage. We were starting to get tired and it would have been an epic death march out Bell's, in the dark. I'd like to try it.

WURL Abandoned :(

Burned lots time and energy at Alta of all places.  Wouldn't let us go uphill. Traversed around to Catherines. Poached Devils and Sugarloaf.  Denied at Baldy  AF Twins are closed. And tired. Really tired. Going to the spa. Wait, we spent all our money on Gatorade.

WURLOS

Monte Cristo. Tired.

WURLOS

Drom.

WURLOS

Twin at 5 am.

DAY 100! And then some

Well, I wanted to do something huge, epic, remote and wild for my 100th day. Jim Knight had recommended a big line on Cascade, but as a medical student, I am over worked and have so very little time of my own. Such is my plight. That said, today we settled for a guided tour down the Hallway Couloir by the Casey Londer, also known as the powda ganster. There were a fresh 15 inches and so it was going to be fun where ever we went. Since Casey was the guide, we made him break trail all along the ridge until he "thought" we were at the right place to drop off the ridge.

He was right.


The entrance to the Hallway is a devious one and hard to see from above. We picked our way through the upper sections and found the middle entrance. It's chokes down pretty tight and necessitates a mini straight line to enter the main chute. To test the stability, we sent our guide down, who found things pretty solid.

Sam doing what he does

A look back at the Hallway

Then today, Sam and I wanted to go check out the ridge line between the Twins, Sunrise, and Dromedary as a little bit of WURLOS recon. We parked at the Maybird Avy sign, intending to head up the chute to the Sunrise ridge, but were dumbfounded to find ourselves baking in the 60 degree heat heading up the massive Tanner's slide path. Somehow, while bush wacking through the scrub oak, Sam led us into the big gun.

Unsure of whether to push on or not with roller balls cascading down the steep side walls, we continued until a decent wet slide came meandering down the upper chute entraining tons of snow and clearing a safe path to the top. So, we kept skinning till we found ourselves at the saddle between Sunrise and Drom.

Dromedary's East Ridge on the right. We're gonna climb that...in the dark?

The way down was slushy goodness that was a chore on the Hagans. I've been skiing the race skis as practice for the above mentioned traverse. Sam on the other hand

About half way down, we realized we'd overstayed our welcome a bit.

Tanner's wet slide from andy dorais on Vimeo.

In case you missed it in the audio, Sam says, " well, at least we know we can out run them." Good plan.

Sam laughing at his potential tomb.

Up next...an attempt at the big traverse.

Day 99, Lisa Falls and Bell's Canyon

Yesterday was a pretty bipolar day. The morning was fast, light, full of adventure and ice. The afternoon was warm, slushy, and unfortunately casual. I woke up at 4:00 AM to meet Jared and Bart by 5:00 for a trip up Tanner's, into Broad's, up Twin, and down Lisa Falls.
We made quick work of Tanner's, skinning until the upper couloir, where it was a bit too icy to skin, but too breakable to boot easily. Apparently Jared was hoping for a sub 1 hour ascent. We topped out around an hour and a half, but had goofed around with the back and forth skinning/booting/picture taking for a bit.

Bart, trying to figure out if he should boot or skin the upper section of Tanner's.

Central Wasatch

At the top of Tanner's we considered a couple ways to get to the Twins. Since we're considering an insane traverse involving a lot of mountains, it might have been wise to go over O'Sullivan to familiarize ourselves with the terrain. Constrained time wise by Jared's promise to be at his son's soccer game, we took the more efficient path down into Broad's and back up to the saddle.

O'Sullivan is the peak in the middle. Up and over would have obviously been time consuming. Anyone been up there in winter conditions before? Best/fastest route up and down?

We followed the East ridge up the Twins and found a couple entertaining sections.



Look closely, Jared is drytooling with a whippet

Lone Peak, visible on the right, is becoming an obsession. I had hoped to head over there after Lisa Falls, but that didn't quite work out.

LIsa Falls descends from the saddle between the two summits and heads south (left).

Lisa Falls receives three stars in the "Chuting Gallery." The key reports *** as, "To die for...Major in every way...Do it now!" Yesterday was different. A direct quote from Jared, "This is the worst skiing of my entire life."

The Y looking pretty small below

It was still great fun though and the adventure factor high. Bart recently said that too much powder is boring and after a while, one starts to search out more interesting snow. We got more than interesting. At one point, the wet slide debris piles were so deep, we had to take off our skis and stumble through the microwave size blocks.

And, it doesn't let up. Near the end, one has to find a way to not have their day ruined by the cliff over which Lisa Falls pour. We went with the trusty boards buried in the snow deadman. Jared dug the pit while I equalized a couple boards and Bart cleaned up the old rope left on a scraggly bush that we used as backup. Abiding by the "biggest guy rappels first when the anchor is crappy" adage, I tensely lowered over the ice coated rock while Jared stood on the snow as my backup. Being the biggest isn't a good thing when trying to follow these two yahoos around.



Jared's turn sans backup

The anchor was solid but time consuming, and we still had to walk most of the way down the drainage because of the low snow conditions. We tried to move quickly though, as we had just witnessed impressive rock fall into the gully, and because by now Jared was 15 minutes late for the soccer game.

Back on the road, I called Tanner and Casey for round two. Casey claimed illness (whether real or not is on his conscious), but Tanner rallied up to meet me. I grabbed a couple Taquitos from Seven Eleven and we drove down Wasatch to the Bell's Canyon trailhead. We hiked about 1000 vertical in running shoes before switching to skis. The snow was mush, and we were breaking trail. About 4,600 ft up Bell's it became apparent that we wouldn't make it up Lone Peak due to Tanner's heavy gear, the hour (I had to get back for date night), and some concern over the warm conditions. We did however, make it far enough to get a painful look.

...Next time.