My last post on the Ribbon at Alta got me focused again on the Chuting Gallery. I’ve had plenty of excuses lately, some good and some not. I guess I’ve been waiting for ‘ideal’ conditions after being shut down so many times now. Today was a ‘nice’ pre-frontal day, time to give the Generator a third and hopefully final try.

A few years ago Dylan Freed and I got in the habit of skiing in strange places on pre-frontal and storm days. We ticked off a bunch of odd lines, some from the Chuting Gallery and others from our own imagination. On super bowl Sunday we tried to ski the Powerhouse and Generator in one go. We ended up skiing good snow in the Powerhouse and then getting lost in the upper reaches and skiing a partial chute which wasn’t the Generator. A year or so after that I tried it with Darrell and we had a mini epic and were shut down for lack of crampons. We attempted to skirt around it unsuccessfully. Click HERE to view that sufferfest.

Warm temps down low haven't exactly filled in the gully. Time to put the head down and suffer through it AGAIN.

Wet snow made for good skinning and coverage. Here is the base of the Crux and the furthest I'd made it before.

I came prepared this time with sharp whippets and crampons. They were crucial to work through three icy chokes.

Very tight quarters for a few hundred feet. The spin drifts were flowing through this stretch like waterfalls.

The chute opened up and booting was deep. Good things come to those who wade.

The storm left a few inches of snow and then abated as quickly as it had blown in.

Testing next years Drystein jacket from Mountain Hardwear. Forgot to use the hood.

This is SUPPOSED to be where the video portion of the descent would be, but the helmet cam didn’t work. Imagine soft snow with a punchy layer hacked up by a newbie on AT gear. Not too pretty, hop and hack turns with nice scenery.

In the change over from skiing to booting I dropped my ski. Luckily it landed ass end right in the chute and stayed put. LUCKY!

Working down the crux. Make sure to sharpen your whippets if you intend to use them in ice and they can work surprisingly well.

There are very few approaches/exits this 'challenging' in the Wasatch. Time to channel my inner dirty sailor to come up with creative curse words.

When you're not in the stream bed you get to pass through lots of this.

It’s really nice to have this one off the tick list! Especially since it’s raining out my window right now and shrinking the already thin snowpack. That leaves three more chutes to go!

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