tradygirl
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Salt Lake has finally been getting a little bit of a break between storms (I know, poor us) and I've been itching to tick off something from my "must-do" list. Snow conditions had a chance to settle a bit over the last few days, and a lot of the bigger, scarier lines are getting stable enough to ski.
For those of you fortunate enough to have skied in Little Cottonwood Canyon, you most likely saw the impressive Mt. Superior. It is the massive peak directly across the road from Snowbird and is the source of many road-burying avalanches. It's one of the jewels of the Wasatch - an extremely aesthetic line.
From Alta, you can get a really good viewpoint of one of the more obvious chutes on Superior - Suicide Chute. It's a consistent 40 degree line that comes directly off the south shoulder of the peak. It intimidates the hell out of me, but it was time to finally ski it.
Superior from Alta. Suicide chute is the first obvious chute on bottom half of the shoulder (above the triangular-shaped rock band)
The sun was scheduled to come out in a big way on Sunday, so we wanted to get an early start so we'd get off Mother Superior before the gigantic south face started warming up and shedding snow down on top of us. Six o'clock wake-up call and we were skinning by seven. Only 30-40 minutes of skinning led us to the base of the chute where the skis came off and it was time to boot.
Heading for the chute (above me and to the left)
It was slow going, as we had to break trail. Left foot up, kick in, set the foot, push. Right foot up, kick in, set, push. 1500' of booting fun.
Getting there. Whew. That's Hellgate condos and upper Snowbird below.
Being up on Superior is intimidating. Everything is big and impressive, and you always have the gnawing presence of that gigantic face lurking above. The scenery was amazing.
Hellgate cliffs up-canyon.
After an hour or two of booting we finally reached the cornice at the top. With a little help from my whippets (love those things!) we climbed up over the cornice and stood on the shoulder of Superior. What a cool feeling. At that moment, however, the clouds decided to sock us in so we couldn't see anything past 50 feet. Bummer.
With butterflies in my stomach, I dropped into what would be my first true chute-skiing experience. It was incredible - the clouds parted and I saw Little Cottonwood road at my feet, huge rock cliff walls on both sides, and 1500' of beautiful settled powder. Amazing. (Sorry, no pics of skiing - only video. I'll try to post later!)
Looking up after getting through the bottom choke point. The chute dog-legs to the left behind the cliff.
The best part of the day was looking at our tracks from the road. Very impressive. We drove up to Alta to get some coffee and bask in our glory. We laughed when we saw a guy in the parking lot tap his friend on the shoulder and point to our tracks.
This shot shows the line and our tracks. It's pretty cool to know that hundreds of people were looking at our tracks all day with drool running down their faces. :D
Another spectacular tick off my list.
For those of you fortunate enough to have skied in Little Cottonwood Canyon, you most likely saw the impressive Mt. Superior. It is the massive peak directly across the road from Snowbird and is the source of many road-burying avalanches. It's one of the jewels of the Wasatch - an extremely aesthetic line.
From Alta, you can get a really good viewpoint of one of the more obvious chutes on Superior - Suicide Chute. It's a consistent 40 degree line that comes directly off the south shoulder of the peak. It intimidates the hell out of me, but it was time to finally ski it.
Superior from Alta. Suicide chute is the first obvious chute on bottom half of the shoulder (above the triangular-shaped rock band)
The sun was scheduled to come out in a big way on Sunday, so we wanted to get an early start so we'd get off Mother Superior before the gigantic south face started warming up and shedding snow down on top of us. Six o'clock wake-up call and we were skinning by seven. Only 30-40 minutes of skinning led us to the base of the chute where the skis came off and it was time to boot.
Heading for the chute (above me and to the left)
It was slow going, as we had to break trail. Left foot up, kick in, set the foot, push. Right foot up, kick in, set, push. 1500' of booting fun.
Getting there. Whew. That's Hellgate condos and upper Snowbird below.
Being up on Superior is intimidating. Everything is big and impressive, and you always have the gnawing presence of that gigantic face lurking above. The scenery was amazing.
Hellgate cliffs up-canyon.
After an hour or two of booting we finally reached the cornice at the top. With a little help from my whippets (love those things!) we climbed up over the cornice and stood on the shoulder of Superior. What a cool feeling. At that moment, however, the clouds decided to sock us in so we couldn't see anything past 50 feet. Bummer.
With butterflies in my stomach, I dropped into what would be my first true chute-skiing experience. It was incredible - the clouds parted and I saw Little Cottonwood road at my feet, huge rock cliff walls on both sides, and 1500' of beautiful settled powder. Amazing. (Sorry, no pics of skiing - only video. I'll try to post later!)
Looking up after getting through the bottom choke point. The chute dog-legs to the left behind the cliff.
The best part of the day was looking at our tracks from the road. Very impressive. We drove up to Alta to get some coffee and bask in our glory. We laughed when we saw a guy in the parking lot tap his friend on the shoulder and point to our tracks.
This shot shows the line and our tracks. It's pretty cool to know that hundreds of people were looking at our tracks all day with drool running down their faces. :D
Another spectacular tick off my list.
