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This morning I found only ~20 inches in a sheltered, N facing area at 9500 in Alexander Basin. In the trees it was more like 8-10 inches. Definitely less snow than upper BCC and LCC, but it doesn't need much either, thankfully. Turns were actually very good.

Doug and I went went for a short tour yesterday after work. summer like down low, something resembling winter starts around 8000ft. Fun turns!


PS- Anyone doing the thanksgiving skimo race at brighton on Thursday? I think Snurfer and I are going to go (pending me getting over this cold) and will be doing our best skimo-sexual imitations.

Winds reset a lot of lines that were probably already ridden. Found a breakable wind skin to wind slab. Wind slab kept me on my toes, skipped one fun line and stuck to following my track down for the second lap.





Hope for snow, take care.

SICK UTAH!!!

Skinned up to check out Mt. Raymond. It was an awful approach as snow is melting. Did an ECT on a east facing chute without any results. Snowpack is thin maybe 2.5 feet overall. The winds did work to Raymond as it was pretty wind buffed. About 3 turns into it though the snow was soft and it was a freaking blast as I had never hit Raymond. I will go through photos and maybe post something after tomorrows tour. Happy Thanksgiving fellow Wasnatchers

Nice work dudes! Last years lessons for making the best of what we have, seem to be serving us well.
Sweet photos Nic!
Dan and I got out to the Wasatch SkiMo series kick-off race yesterday, it was fun and challenging.
There were five splitters representing: Four dudes, one lady; four fruit booters and a softy... Its a good time and one helluva a workout
2 -Chimera
1- Prior
1- Venture
1- Voile

the skimo thing was fun yesterday. circuit/lap format. do as many laps on the course as you can in one hour. course was around 500vert probably a little less. Doug and I both managed 3 laps, one splitboarder managed four. Skimo dudes probably did 6 or more(edit: the winner did 6). really fun and mellow vibe. I plan on participating in the whole race series this year. I would encourage everyone to try to make it out to a few, was surprised that the spacesuit skimo nerds were so stoked to have splitboarders representing.


Doug approaching the transition point Lap 2

Nice recap of the race with some praise for the the splitters
http://slcsherpa.blogspot.com/2012/11/s ... p.html?m=1

Nice work Dan and Doug! I'll definitely be out for some of these this year... for some reason, I didn't think splitting was allowed. But, now I know!

Went up today to the Maybird area. Found a chute and rode it. It was a good day.

Photos from today and yesterday.

Little sunrise from yesterday.


What the trail to Raymond looks like


Chute off of Raymond


Chute in Maybird.

Nice Logan! cool lines

Nice work guys. Looking forward to some evening laps and beers at molly's.......Dan's buying....right. Take care.

I'm flying out of town tomorrow. Would anyone want to take a dawn patrol anywhere?

Sunday Nov. 25

Yesterday I wanted to get out for some exercise and decided to pack board and boots on my back and make the shitty approach in winter trail running shoes. As expected, the ground was mostly bare, with patches of hard ice and rotted snow from the trail-head at 7700' and giving way to powder snow from the last storm/wind at 8300'. The later was mostly confined to the protected creek bottom which the trail follows. This is where I switched from studded trail shoes to AT boots.

From the shoe to boot transition I skinned another quarter mile before turning up onto the n/nw slopes where I was breaking trail in 3-6" of mixed windblown pow and surface facets. As one would expect, the two lines from the top were best mid-slope and would be best described as decent powder on a stout base. Slope angles were 25-30°.

Wanting to see my lines (which were ugly), I skinned up the s/se east face which was frozen rock solid, interspersed with brush and dirt patches, but it was good practice for a skill I lack, while being super low consequence, 20-25°

At the ridge I took a look over into the next drainage to the n/ne/nw and noted some good pow down off the ridge. The ridge-line itself was completely absent any loading with all signs pointing to winds out of the n/nw scouring everything onto the aforementioned frozen southerly aspects. This affect was also observed near the tops of the n/nw facing lines I rode, in the form of shallow shitty snow.

Unable to resist the lure of this next drainage I dropped in and found some of the best tree powder of the season, dumping out into a zone of fun little bumps, banks, rollers and tubes... Fun! Angle varied between 15-30°

In the bottom of the drainage I took lunch and a PBR as a weak disturbance brought dark skies and stronger winds over the area, this was about noon and four hours into the tour, so I put in a skinner back to the ridge. Cutting a trail on tired legs was challenging, because of the slick base overlain with wind dust and facets, but alas I made it back to the ridge for the shitty side-slip down the ice crusted south face. Lets just say this sucked really bad.

Finally, I did have a really fun skin-ski for the next mile or so of single track until it gave way to rocks, dirt and ice where I slung my boards skimo style and hiked the remaining half mile. It was a great tour with a little bit of everything. I ended up covering eight miles and 6500' vert while putting the proto-type Chimera through a little bit of everything, but overhead pow. Hopefully it will snow soon, but I fear the surface facets are going to cause some problems when it does. Stay on your toes and have fun!

Approach gear, note carbide studs!

8400'


Looking good for the down n/nw aspect @ 9400'


Wind affects from the n/nw @ 9800'


Two down


Lunch


Fun gully, soft snow


Wind scoured outcrop


W-h-o-a dude, somebody spiked me PBR