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.
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.
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!
Now we know who the sesbnile one is here. Great post!
nice pics! Whoever your photog was really captured the spirit of the day. “good things go to those who wade……..” I’m going to remember that the next time I’m dealing with my bf and all his shit. ha,ha,ha.
the triangle was fun today! whata quick little squall huh…same conditions over the ridge…CHEERS! lettme know if you need a partner. i’d be super down for the Lightning bolt
Yea, with Jared and Bart. This last storm filled it in as much as I’ve ever seen. I think any big dump will probably do. Let me know if you want a partner to go ski some ice on a powder day. I think my Chuting Gallery tick list is more like 50+ …one day.
Exciting stuff. Which ones are left?
GWI-
Lightning Bolt-
Pfief NE Face-
Did you ski GWI with Jared? How was that? Been putting it off in hopes of an epic dump that fills it in fully. Becoming clear it won’t happen and I’m just going to have to get ‘er done though.