Alaska: Post 1/4 - April 6 & 7, 2014

This post is not really about skiing, this first one deals mostly with the trip in and views mostly from the car. This is a trip I took the initiative too in September of 2013. This was going to be my very first trip to mythical, epic Alaska. For the whole season I couldn't wait for it and two bays before taking off: I get a high fever debilitating flue that I am not sure if its not going to kill it. I figure I have two days till the trip plus two days of traveling to get better so I'll go because not going just does not feel like a viable alternative. This is Valdez we're talking about: heard too much and been anticipating too much and too long to give it up now. So I pop everything I can get my hands on and hope to get better real soon.
The trip from Salt lake to Anchorage, although it's a flight, takes up the most part of a day mainly on account of a longish layover in Seattle. After a day of travel check in to a hotel in Anchorage:

Taking off from the hotel in Anchorage
for a six hour road trip.

...and in the am get the car loaded and its off over Richardson HWY to Valdez. 

That's a 300 mile drive for a distance as the crow flies of maybe 80 miles, see 

below for that efficient route selection:

In any case the group still seems excited half way into the drive.

Excitable bunch on the road

Mount Billy Mitchell where the Rendez Vous Heli guides hang out...

Rendez-vous heli guides a bit before Thompson Pass on the way in.

My buddies do a quick late PM tour - It's daylight forever in AK

Off they go...

And here they are somewhere on or around Billy Mitchell

Nice glacier picture taken by Adam

The Bookends

Girls Mountain...

...and at the end of the road, Valdez and the plush
accommodations we drove all this way here...

Milly-Wolverine-Twin Lakes Pass-Patsy Marly-Brighton 03-09-2014

This is an easy but fun tour that Richard and I did in great conditions: a bluebird with a stable snow-pack. This tour starts off on the Milly Express lift (one way ticket). At the top of the lift we boot-packed to summit Mt Millicent then skied down to  the saddle and then skinned up to the top of Wolverine. From there we did four laps down Wolverine bowl and into hidden bowl. On the last lap we went up to Stupid Chute and dropped down below Wolverine cirque and on to Twin Lakes. There we transitioned back into skins to get up Patsey Marley via Twin Lakes Pass and got a nice and long ski out down Heaven's Gates and past the lake and into Brighton. There we skied the resort slopes going down Exhibition back to the Milly Express base.

Here are the pictures (click to enlarge):

View of Devil's Castle from the saddle between Mt Millicent and Mt Wolverine

Hidden Bowl

Entrance to Stupid Chute

View of Mt Superior from Stupid Chute

Looking back up at Stupid Chute

The woods by Twin Lakes on the way out

Main Days, March 5, 2014

This is an Alta - Main Days round trip by Mike, Richard and I. Skinning up to the top of West Bowl via Flagstaff Gully at 10020 we dropped in at Hideaway Park in Days Fork down to about 9000 then skinned back up to the top of Main Days at 10561. The snow was absolutely fantastic, light and fast. Going down Main Days in those conditions makes it feel like the fun just never ends. Definitely worth doing again - so we did. This was a sunny and stable kind of day so everything was perfect except maybe for the noise level introduced in that fork when the chopper came in. It wouldn't stop that day for a long while. While skinning up the choice line that Main Days is, I was worried they would drop a dozen skiers on "our" line which would have made that day significantly less perfect. But they didn't the first time, nor the second time we went up. They dropped on West Bowl just south of us and then a couple of drops on Crystal Palace just north of us but not on Main Days. I was wondering; could this be a coincidence? and as often in those cases you don't get a definite answer. Well a couple of weeks later I stumbled into my friend and mountain guide, Brian Redding, at the supermarket in Park City. He told me it actually is policy over at the Powderbirds to leave alone any line that back country skiers are skinning up. They have the ability to pick any other line and so that's what they choose to do. This does make me feel a lot better about that outfit. I don't like compromise in the BC more than the next guy but I always felt that the temporary encroaching by heli operations are less of a threat than the always permanent aspect of resort expansion. So, thank you Powderbirds for not "robbing us" of "our" line...

Here a few pictures (click to enlarge):

Richard and Mike on the way up with Superior in the distance.

Transitioning on top of Main Days

What that line looks like when you are looking at it from the good end...

Cardiac Pass Feb 26, 2014

This tour started and ended at Our Lady of the Snows in Alta. Richard and I went up to Cardiff Pass, proceeded to contour Cardiff Peak and dropped in for our first ski into Power Outage. From there we went straight to Cardiac Pass and having had a bit of a late start decided to not continue into Mill B South but to just ski down through Cardiac Bowl. Once down to about 9200 we skinned across to a point south-east of where we started from getting us closer to the LCC/BCC ridgeline. Once on top of the Powerline we had a great ski down till a bit below Holy Moly. After a quick lunch break we skinned back up to Cardiff Pass and dropped from there back into Alta. The conditions were fantastic; Sunny and Stable. And as a bonus sunny did not mean baked south faces so the ski out was actually a lot of relaxing fun too.

Here are the pictures (click to enlarge):

Richard at Cardiac Pass. Clearly the proud owner of a pair of skis.

Richard skiing down and across Cardiac Bowl, going, going....

Gone!

View into Cardiff Fork and the Powerline buttress.

Lunch rock somewhere below Holy Moly

Richard back at Cardiff Pass and...

...a fun relaxing ski out back down to Alta - A day well spent.

New Year at Maybird Gulch

For this New Year tour Eric, Mike, Richard, Scooter and I went from the White Pine trailhead to Maybird Gulch. Considering our very thin snowpack we went in with very low expectations as far as any quality skiing is concerned and we were just planning on a longish workout tour. Once in Maybird we got a vivid reminder of the low density facet layer at the bottom of our snowpack: A deep and powerful collapse at about 10,200 on the flat and thankfully far from any steep slopes. This happened in an area where Mike and I had established our “base camp” a few years back. After clomping around till the Small Pass we decided to try some low angle runs below the Hogum Divide and into the central part of the gulch. To our surprise we found some really fun powder and a great ski on a legit snow cover! We did a few laps on this good stuff and then had a lot more excellent skiing on the ski-out. All in all a fantastic way to bring in 2014.

Here are the pictures (click to enlarge):

From left to right: Mike, Richard, Scooter and Eric.

Hogum Divide. With a higher resolution one of my favorite
 spots in the Wasatch, the Obelisk, would be visible here.

In the background, the majestic Pfeifferhorn. In the foreground
a reminder that Richard is part of nature too...

Safety in low angle.

Mike and Eric on their second lap.

West Porter Fork

Today we encountered fantastic snow conditions in West Porter Fork. The powder was abundant, fast and fun. The snowpack did not give up any signs of instability at all. We still have a few inches of facets down under though and that layer is much lower density than what’s above so we are definitely looking at an upside down snowpack that will require caution for yet a while. However we did stay on terrain well below 35° most of the time and whenever it was steeper it was in reasonably tight trees. The exit is reminiscent of what I can imagine the Trail of Tears would be but still well worth the effort considering this must be one of the very few favored spots right now.

Here are the pictures (click to enlarge):

Scenic cliff bands on the way up the skin track
at about 9,000 '

View into West Porter Fork

View into Main Porter Fork

Powder everywhere...

Mike in full transition

Scott coming down...

...and eric too..

From left to right: Don, Eric, Mike, and Scott.

Mike makes it to an old school first responder 

Powder in West Bowl

In an effort to introduce my two oldest sons, Adrien and Nico, to the Wasatch backcountry, under our routinely highly unstable conditions, I took them to West Bowl. We made this a bi-canyonal and so skinned from Alta to West Bowl where we did a couple of laps. The powder was exceptionally good, fun and fast. The last couple of storms really improved coverage so we hit hardly any rocks at all (what a difference two weeks can make!).  We skied out through Silver Fork taking the bus, at Solitude Beam Lodge, back down to 6200S park and ride. There was a fair amount of cracking on the south facing going up to the LCC/BCC ridge line. We also heard a lot of whoomps in Silver Fork, once on the east facing side and several times on the west facing one. We stayed well clear of any steeps so did not remote trigger anything.

Here are the pictures (click to enlarge):

Nico and Adrien working hard under the morning's unstable weather.

Mount Superior in the distance, Toledo Bowl and Cardiff Pass
in the foreground

Nico and Adrien arriving to West Bowl with
Mont Superior in the background.

Lots of powder in West Bowl with Emma Ridge in the background.

Turns in West Bowl.