This was a tour with, by Wasatch standards, a longish
approach. That’s because we decided to start this tour in Big Cottonwood at the
Cardiff Fork trail head. A shorter alternative would be to start at Alta and go
either to Holy Toledo or via Cardiff Pass. In any case we picked the scenic “Nordic
ski” in.
We skinned up the old mining road a few miles past Montreal
Hill and then on to the High Ivory ridgeline. From there we dropped down on the
western side into Mineral Fork via “Dark Ebony”. I imagine the name is a play
on names to bounce of off the sunny name in Ivory vs the other side that does
not get much lite (see pictures below). I like to call that couloir the Sickle,
for the reason see the pictures, but that’s just me. We were expecting pretty
nice snow as this feature gets hardly any sun at all but the quality could at
best b labelled “variable” snow… I guess it must be fairly wind affected, maybe
some venture type deal going up that couloir but that’s all just speculation.
After that line we went up Santiago Ridge to the top and had
a cool and long ski out. This snow was fantastic. We skied out to the Mineral
Fork trailhead where we had cached a car.
Here are the pictures:
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| Towards High Ivory |
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| Yours truly with with point 10,631 in the background, |
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| The entrance into Dark Ebony is in the trees before you get to the couloir a bit further down. |
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| Looking up Santiago Ridge. |
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| The line, Dark Ebony aka the Sickle, as seen from Santiago Ridge. |
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