Thursday, January 7, 2010

Long John Silver delivers the treasure

Today we went up White Pine in Little Cottonwood looking for high elevation skiing in this snow poor season. White Pine as always delivered. The snow quality coverage was good even though we skied Long John Silver which is a south-west aspect.

A feature of White Pine that I always liked, is the bridge over Little Cottonwood Creek at the very beginning of the trail, that you get to cross on skis. If you are not already there, it kinda puts you right in the mood for another glorious BC day (see picture to the left, click to enlarge).

Today there were three of us on the tour; Mike, Scott and yours truly. We spent about two hours reaching the base of Long John Silver (see picture to the right, click to enlarge).
Once there we did laps. The snowpack seemed bomber and gave no signs of any weaknesse at all. According to our friends of the Utah Avalanche Center this makes sense as south-west is the aspect that is supposed to be the least risky today.
Now with the snow cover being what it is and considering that the snow line stops about 200 feet below Red Stack, Long John Silver delivers a solid 1,000 feet vertical with a resonably steep fall line on top. As you can see below, there is a potential for a fairly long skin up:


Below is a picture of the Pfeifferhorn in the distance with its hanging snowfield (click to enlarge):

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