Wasatch Wiggling

Irie

 After a long stint sans personal computer and a home I thought I’d rejoin the world wide web community. Hello web users!

Wahoo

 What have you been up to dude? Well you guessed it skiing and climbing all summer in the PNW. I don’t want to bore you with everything I’ve done because I’m just another dude floating around doing stuff mountain people do. So here’s a cliff notes version of my life if your interested. I skied many of the cascade volancoes, met a ton of cool people, climbed a bunch of different areas and routes, saw a lot of neat places, and just had a good ole time. Everything worked out for the best and set me in the right direction. Thank you Timberline Mountain Guides for being the best company ever to work for! www.timberlinemtguides.com

I love to share useful info for your adventures and one thing I’d like to say is that Mount Shasta is an awesome town with some great skiing and suprisingly good climbing. If your ever in the area there is great free camping galore. There is also a plethora of stellar basalt and limestone. Many of the climbs are new or are in the process of being put up. If you need any info contact Styles (the coolest shop owner ever) at Shasta Base Camp (best freeking gear shop I’ve been too!!!!) www.shastabasecamp.com Also for a beer, burgerish sandwiches, and garlic fries The Billy Goat Tavern is da bomb. I dont think they have a website but its hard to miss in a small town. Its located in the heart of town.

Topher

 Life is a trip and I lived a lot this summer and hopefully you did as well. Till next time, same time, same channel, over and out. TG………..P.S. this winter is going to bring some new fun twists to my life I’m getting really excited about it.

Sunset over the Tourqoiuse Mtns

Going to work on Mt Shasta this summer for Shasta Mountain Guides. I am leaving tomorrow and will be in the area all summer. If your looking to ski Shasta let me know. Or if you want to ski some other volcanoes look me up. Have a great summer. Mt Shasta has an 8000 foot ski run on it, described by Lou Dawson as the greatest ski run in North America. Shasta is 3 hrs from Tahoe, the pacific, and Smith Rocks. The other cascade volcanoes are really close and have some great skiing on them. Guess im not putting away the skis till sometime in June? Im looking forward to getting out of the City that Always Sleeps, Salt Lame City. Maybe you need to get out of wherever your from? You think you can just float around and do all those things that you do? You know, floating around causing trouble, doing this kinda thing, that kinda thing. Get over it and come out!

Glewgun the rope gun

Went on a climbing trip with some really cool ladies from Crested Butte and it was sick guy. Limestone sport climbing on awesome rock.

Fiesta

The Spires

The spire on the right is awesome. It has an arch in the middle of the first pitch and you  can see clear through to the other side. The final pitch is on the lookers left arete and changes corners from slab to overhung jugs, so fun!

Euro Trash

Dont give this bumb any money the climbings free

Gotta give you some beta. Don’t pay the bumb who asks for illegal entry fees.

Ladies love climbers well at least I keep telling myself that

Wicked sick climbs up to 25 pitches. Some of the greatest rock and the greatest time ever!

Adam and I went on a trip to Great Basin National Park on the spur of the moment. He said it was going to be sunny at the Park tomorrow and we needed to go. We left SLC at 9pm, arrived at the park at 1:30am, and woke up at 5:45 to realize I forgot the white gas. No breakfast and coffee. Arg. 

Wheeler

After several miles of skiing 15 degree slopes and flats we got to the buisness. Just below the tree line we skinned by some 4,000 to 5,000 year old Bristlecone Pines, the oldest known living organism in the world. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristlecone_pine ) I found it amazing that Bristlecones are found below massive slide paths that run frequently and are still standing for thousands of years. 

Looking east across the West Desert

With views to the east across the Great Basin to the House Range I came across this dead Bristlecone that looks like Jar Jar Binks from the new Star Wars. What does it look like to you?

Jar Jar?

Looks like this Bristlecone has survived a few avalanches.

When we got up to the Glacier Basin we saw some nice ski trails. Due to very high winds we couldn’t ski it and decided to keep heading up. 

F.A?

This is the only Glacier in Nevada and the states highest peak. It is a very small glacier below the north face of Wheeler at 13,065 feet. 

Wheeler Peaks Glacier

We kept heading west and acscended to the south up a ramp to a ridge and up the shoulder to the top of Wheeler. There were 100 mph winds on the summit ridgeline so we decided to ditch our skis and hike the last 500 vertical feet to the top. We skied down some nice Sastrugi and windboard on a north facing 30 degree ramp, then traversed back east, the way we acscended. When we left the alpine we got into the trees and found some 30-35 degree powder tree skiing!

Mountain Shadows

Great Basin National Park

After a 20 mile round trip and 11 hour of touring we called it a day and drove back to the SLC in an empty desert with an empty stomach. I would reccomend this place to ya’ll if you enjoy skiing where no one else goes in the winter. Or you can wait till they plow the road to the upper lot and go ski some coliours if theres still snow and cut off miles of approach.

Xan, Christian, Ansel, and I went up to ski the highest peak in the Wasatch, Mt Nebo 11,928. We drove to the town of Mona and headed up Pole Canyon. Due to packed powder driving conditions Christians Subaru made it up quite a ways until we were shut down by an overgrown Christmas tree covering the road.

NW Cols off Nebo Summit

We skinned for about 500 vert from the car to the base of  a slide path heading up Pole Canyon to the summit of Mt Nebo. For those of you familar with Wasatch skiing, it is like skinning up Argenta. We got to the top of the slide path on got on a ridge heading to the top of Nebo. You can see the ridge in the picture above and below this text.

Highest summit on Nebo 11,928.

We hiked up the ridge to the summit which is not as steep as it looks.

Summit Step. Look closely on the ridge and make out some mountain hikers with Timp and Central Wasatch in the distance.

After about 4 hours of hiking, route finding, and luncheon we got to the top and politely signed the summit register. (Sorry Uncle Keith)

Xan East side

Pictured above is the east facing cornish run we skied  from the summit which was somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 vert. Sorry no altimiters here. Xan (the guy in the picture above) lives Gloucester Mass, sits on his sailboat year round eating Fenway Franks and drinking Harpoon IPA, then comes out to Utah for a week and slays it (not dragons, skiing).

Pictured below is the majority of the cirque we skied. What a massive slide path! We werent even half way down and had to turn around because we thought it was getting kind of warm and we had to hurry on up. 2,500 to 3,000 vert no big deal (sarcasm). But it wasn’t getting too wet and heavy and we should have gone further. Next time. 

East side from the bottom...well almost

 

Christian on the NW col

 We got back up to the top and skied the lookers left col off the NW face of  Nebo. This thing was huge in vert and width. About 2,700 according to google earth. YIKES! Then the Argenta-esque slidepath to finish off a 5,500 vert ski trail. No big deal, I once met a man who told me that he skis 7,000 foot runs in the Selkirks all the time. I think his name is spraylord. Well hope you enjoy the trip report.

http://www.wasatchpowderkeg.com/

If you live here in Salt Lake and ski tour you should try racing the Powder Keg in Alta. The race is on March 14th and is $60. To those familiar with the Alta area and Grizzly Gulch here is a description. The race starts up the moguls below Wildcat up to the top of Collins, then out the High Traverse over to Gunsight for a sweet downhill, then down to the Cat Shop. You skin up to a bootpack on the lower west side of  the Patsy Marley ridge. You continue up the ridge to Grizzly Bowl for some powder turns most likely, ski down to Michigan City trees near the Pyramid Gap. Then skin up Black Bess,  then back down Black Bess, then up to the top of Davenport Hill or west facing Silver fork, then then back down to the base of Alta. This is about 5,000 ft up and 5,000 feet down. 

There is also a Recreation division which is the same course, but you don’t have to skin up Alta. You skin across the rope tow and up to the top of Patsy and so on an so forth. This is about 3,000 up and 3,000 down. 

The race is really fun whether your gunning for the podium or just out looking to have a good time racing a bunch of wahoos around the mountain. You just need skis, skins, standard avy gear, a helmet, and a preferably a costume! Even if you have Fritschi Freerides and big old boards you should give it a whirl. Well worth the $60. 

Race Division Topo

Well I’ve been skiing quite a bit as usual somewhere between 5-7 days a week. Most of them full days. However I’ve been such a junkshow and I’m sorry I have not been on top of the site and taking pictures. I’m usually to beat to do anything else besides cook dinner and pass out. 

The snow conditions have been awesome. One peice of advise though. Don’t try skiing off Dromedary down to Mill B when fog is rolling in. I thought I’d be down the run before it got too thick, but I was wrong. The stupidist thing I’ve done in my life skiing. Good thing I was solo and can deal with vertigo well. 

I told myself I’d never ski an open shot in fog or heavy snow storm again but Gramps convinced me to ski Cardiac yesterday and it was so deep you couldnt see anyways. We broke the skinner and it was almost as deep going up, ugh. No one in cardiac on a stable powder day? He calls it Hellen Keller Skiing. The visibility was actually a lot better than the day I  skied off Drom. I wish I had some pics, darn.

Here is a guest TR from my most consistent ski partner Adam Lawton. I was with him that day but once again neglected my camera as did everyone in the group besides Gramps who hasent sent me the pics yet.

(east ridge is in lookers left of photo, separating Big Provo and Cascade Cirque)

Todd and I, along with our friends Gramps, Dave, and Nate skied the East Ridge of Mt. Timpinogos. We started at 6:45 am skiing up Primrose Cirque and then up the Timpinogos Snowfieldto the Saddle. We traversed around the East Summit on the West ( Provo) face of Timpinogos and gained the east ridge. Conditions warranted the use of an ice ax or whippet when traversing as a fall on the southwest facing ice would have resulted in an uncontrolled slide ending up in some Mo-Mo shereefs yard. The east ridge was hands down my favorite ski descent ever in Utah or Colorado. 4,800 vert in total, with the upper portions being double exposed double fall line 45 degree ridge skiing with cliffs on both sides. We exited the ridge via an amazing exit couloir through the cliff bands and into Big Provo Cirque. The remaineder of the run consisted of various powder bowls, and a few chose your own chute sections, one in which i got a small wind slab to release. The tour ended at Sundace Ski area where Todd and I sussed the lifts and rode the resort for a while then sussed free pizza from the restaraunt, in true Skier Boyz fashion- Adam M. Lawton

Montgomery Burns, A Sliver a sand dollar a day at the shore, Kurt Kobain's wet dream, and what Santa Claus gave me for Christmas

 Skied a lot of cool stuff during the high pressure and thought I’d share a few pics of some of the places I went.

Self proclaimed first free ascent of the oblisque (spelling). Put it in the American Alpine Journal

Gee wilikers a ski trail?

Twin Peaks and her little sister Lisa

High up in Hogum

A Sliver a Sand Dollar a Day at the Shore, a nice evening at home I dread even more...

Dresden in good shape

Panorama Point?

Kurt where are you buddy?

Lone Peak rocky exit but skiable

Big Papi signaling for a home run. This is David Ortiz's little adopted brother but he is affectionately also known as Big Papi.....of skiing.

Big Papi hitting a 5000 foot homer. World record home run guy.

Headwall of Coalpit

Had a blast skiing a bunch of big lines with my friends and solo. I tried out my rando racing setup and realized I am in good shape. I went up to the top of Bonkers and down Stairs Gulch with my standard BD Avalung pack full with too much water, food, 30 mm rando line, 20 ft of cord, 2 biners, a bivy sack, extra clothes, ect. I hadn’t been out on my light setup all season and surprised myself with a quick approach of 1 hour 45 minutes and an hour down in tricky snow. I was pushing it but kinda chilled poking around the top of bonkers. I think it is about 4,500 to 5000 vert to the top from the S curves trailhead? Correct me if I’m wrong.  I don’t want to spray about this because I don’t think I’m hot sh*t or anything. I am just another guy who spends his time in the mountains and wants to share some cool trip reports you might find entertaining and or useful. But I’m pumped to still be speedy and maybe I can do well racing this year. Watch out Guido (I don’t know how to spell your name) here I come (thats a joke for racers who don’t understand sarcasm). 

Thank you Ski Trab and Scarpa for the awesome speed setup. This gear is light and skis great!

View from the top of Stairs and about 5,000 to the road

Powder cycle was short lived for me and my work? schedule but got some cool pics coming soon. Take care and happy turns