Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Powder turns? On May 12th?

It's more likely than you think.


Sunday, May 9, 2010

Sugarloaf 2: The Sugarloafening

Dedicated blog readers will recall that last year I tried unsuccessfully to summit Sugarloaf Peak. This year I decided to rectify my failure in true Utah style- on skis. I got up at 5 (in the morning) and headed up Little Cottonwood Canyon for a solo ski adventure. I skinned uphill for a couple uneventful hours until I reached the ridge below the summit. It was very scenic and I saw things like the people at Snowbird who got to ride lifts up to the altitude I'd just spent nearly two hours attaining. I shook my fist at them in impotent rage.



Figure 1: Doing the sacred ski dance below the
summit to appease the mountain gods.


With the pleasant hum of ski lifts in the distance I started skinning up the ridge to Sugarloaf, then stopped to strap my skis to my pack and booted up the rest of the way on intermittent snow and talus.

Figure B: Sastrugi!

A short while later I Captain Morgan'd the summit.
Illustration 3: Captain Morganing the summit cairn


Image 4: View from the summit with
mighty Mt. Timpanogos in the distance


And then my camera's battery died. But all I really did after that was ski down the way I came up. I skied from the summit all the way back to the Taco save for about 10 feet where the snow didn't quite cover some talus. The snow was pretty hard going down Sugarloaf, but below the saddle the sun had cooked it to perfect spring conditions.