Sunday, October 28, 2012

First skinning session of the season

We had a reasonably good storm (at least for October) starting yesterday and through the night. So this morning I went to Les Grands Montets (my French substitute for Alta in the pre-season, see 09 post) with my my skins and the gear for a real training session. When I say real, that is as opposed to dry land which obviously is merely fake training. The snow cover varied quite widely from 1/2 an inch to 1.5 feet and more. Anyways, although the conditions were heinous:

40 mph winds
Under very dark clouds
-13 Celsius
Rocks through the snow left and right

...this will still count as the first skinning for the season as I was able to skin uninterrupted from the lift base at 4,000 some feet (1,252 m) all the way to Lognan at about 6,500 feet (1,972 m ). Not the most brutal elevation gain but as bad as things were down at the base it was outright ridiculous at the lift mid-station so I attached the skis to my back pack and started the walk down. Here are the pictures (click to enlarge).
On the south side of the massif at Aiguilles Rouges, the
blue skies would peek through  every now and then.

Another view of Aiguilles Rouges.

Back to my side of things: Crossing one of mant streems.

Skadi always enjoying it whatever the conditions are...

All this snow is less than 24 hours old...

What a difference a couple of weeks can make (click here to see this same waterfall)

Friday, October 26, 2012

Base Camp Pfeifferhorn


When I started this blog a few years back I thought it was all about sharing and showing great backcountry tours in the Wasatch. It seems I was wrong. Looking back at the posts, most of them are dry land! That’s because I get all excited about the upcoming season as I train in the pre-season and in between the training sessions I still have enough time to blog. In the winter on the other hand, tours are great and wonderful and pretty long and all that skiing takes time away from blogging, as it absolutely should. So this year I am going to do things differently: I will in the fall share and show great backcountry tours from the prior year(s). Of course I am talking here about tours that never had been posted yet.
I am starting here with one of my absolute favorites in the Wasatch: Overnight tour at the Pfeifferhorn. My buddy Mike Florence and I had done our fair share of annual pilgrimages to the Pfeifferhorn because it is such an aesthetic area and summit in addition to having unlimited exceptionally good skiing. One day early in the season my Mike and I decided that this time around we needed more time on site and so we would camp right there and wake up in paradise! We decided to camp in Maybird gulch on top of a treed knoll that we had identified as a potentially good, safe and protected base camp. After going through route definition, equipment lists etc, we left in the am on Thursday, April 3rd of 2008 with about 60 Lbs. on our backs.

Trail head: White Pine parking lot (elevation 7,650 feet). This is about 5 1/2 miles up Little Cottonwood Canyon from the Y-Junction and 3/4 mile below Snowbird Ski Resort on the right hand sides of the road. Watch out it’s easy to miss!

Summit: 11,326 feet

Equipment: Skis, ski-crampons, crampons & Ice Axe (and of course the ever present Whippet).

The tour: We started at a comfortable 7 am knowing we would not be too pressed for time on the mountain. From the White Pine parking lot we skied down to the bridge crossing the creek and then followed the obvious trail to the right. We very early left White Pine Canyon, and crossed over into Red Pine Gulch at about 8,000 feet or so. Here we decided to not follow the regular summer route up past Red Pine Lake but instead continue west and cross into Maybird Gulch at about 8,700 feet and from there proceed to the treed knoll at about 10,700 feet to establish camp. We were done at about 11 am and had the rest of the day to explore and ski. This was a fairly stormy day with some snow and a lot of wind particularity on the ridge lines  We skinned up to the ridge line between Maybird and Red Pine and skied that, then across Maybird (heading West) to the Obelisk and skied back from there to camp as the weather was not improving. Luckily for us everything calmed completely down by the evening and by the time we were cooking the wind was gone and the skies were blue! We woke up in the morning to the same spectacular conditions, skinned up towards the Pfeiff as far is we could and then continued on crampons to the top. Here are the pictures of the tour (click to enlarge).


Starting the long heavy slog...

Getting up to the Maybird/Red Pine ridge line after having set up camp.

Mike on top of the ridge line in the storm (this is one guy that knows how to suffer in silence).

Things to come...
Across and over to the other ridge line (Maybird/Hogum) and here is Mike
at  the obelisk.  The top of the Pfeifferhorn  is  behind in the clouds. 
...and I was there too...
Back to camp in the kitchen.
Mike presiding over "base camp".


Next morning is a glorious one indeed with this immediate access to the Pfeifferhorn.
When the skins won't do it anymore, crampon up...
...and up...


Mike on top of the Pfeiff and the world...
 

View into Hogum Fork
We are gnats in the land of giants... (click to enlarge) 
Tasty lines off the ridge to the Pfeiff
Magic surroundings, majestic peaks, unlimited skiing and friends: The meaning of life!
A last look behind before it's back to camp...




Thursday, October 18, 2012

More snow!

On October 16th i.e. this last Tuesday we yet again found snow, this time at 1,400 m (4,400 feet) at Tervelles (about a 20 min. drive from home) and a lot more than last time (see: 1st Snow!). All the distant mountain shots are of the range of the Aravis, here are the pictures (click to enlarge):







And some animal life, the Chamois so characteristic of the alps:











Monday, October 8, 2012

Montagne du Sulens

Training requires motivation; a good way I find to keep the eyes on the prize is to scope out ski terrain when running uphill. So today, I went and explored Montagne du Sulens which is the Haute-Savoie version of the Wasatch’s Powder Parks, the place you go to when conditions are hairy but you need to be out and you still refuse to go to the resort. Although this is not exciting terrain, what I do like about this place is that it’s all grassy making it a very likely early season candidate.

Sulens - the "big" side

Sulens - the small end

Why Sulens is not all that avy prone. Told ya its not too exciting...

Winter view one of a Sulens slope

Winter view two of a Sulens slope, it does feel a lot like Powder Parks
...And for your viewing pleasure, here are a few additional pictures taken today from Sulens:

The Mont-Blanc with his characteristic lenticular cloud being blown off by an incoming storm

The glaciers of the Vanoise natural park

la Pointe Percée, highest point of the Aravis massif at about 9000 feet (and a fun  hike)
Typical "alpage" which is the high elevation summer grazing grounds for the alpine cow
...and last but not least: The colors...


Sunday, October 7, 2012

Glacier d'Argentiére

The Argentière Glacier is the glacier lying perpendicular to the Chamonix valley above the village of Argentière. Starting from the Grand Montets resort parking lot this hike involves an ascent of about 3,500 feet.  It is an interesting one to me because 1) it’s a glacier, 2) it’s skiable from the Grands Montets tram, and 3) it offers access to a ski line of classic beauty off the Aiguille d'Argentiére. This is a great way for me to figure out what it takes to get to that line as well as seeing it live. Or rather imagining it live as it will require a few snowfalls before its ready for skiing…


Here are my two american _____ (fill in the blank). YOU ARE CORRECT!
You DID pick ladies? Right!?!?
Aiguille d'Argentiére
The glacier


More glacier...
For that special glacier feel...

The beautiful pyramid dominating the glacier is Mont Dolent,
a 9014 ft (2748 m) mountain on the  Swiss (Valais) side of the border.

Water running off the opposite old glacier line dating
back to the mini ice age in the middle ages.

The Chalet de Lognan at 6668 feet (2032 m) as seen from above.
It will open again on Dec 20 till early May.

Chalet de Lognan as seen from below.