lone peak, chipman, box elder

Moving apartments, good powder skiing, resting, and schmoozing at the Outdoor Retailer have filled my days since the Jackson Skimo race. High pressure and good avalanche stability moved in last week. This is when things get really interesting. Where to go? What to do? I knew that the speed demons of the Wasatch would be up to no good this past weekend, so I reached out and was invited on an attempt to link-up some classic lines. The idea was to start in Alpine, ascend Lone Peak, ski the Northeast Couloir, traverse to Chimpman and ski the south face, climb Box Elder, and ski back to Alpine. It sounded like a good idea on the phone.

The speed demons are Andy Dorais, Jason Dorais, Teague Holmes, Lars Kjerengtroen and Tom Goth. Is it intimidating to go out with the five fastest and most competitive guys in the Wasatch who all made the USSMA World Cup Team? Yes, but it’s good for the body and the ego to take a beating on a regular basis.

We started in the dark, some in trail shoes, some in race boots, which weigh about the same. The road was patchy to start, but soon turned to snow. A quick transition at dawn.

Legs and lungs were feeling good, but I knew I’d get dropped soon since I was on heavier gear. During some funky gully skinning, I stopped to take a photo, and just like that I was off the back and unable to catch up. Oh well.

The wolf pack back on track after quickly gulping down some fluids and a snack. Andy Dorais looking back to make sure I’m still hanging on.

It was windy up top, so we insulated with our puffy coats and headed towards the North summit. There are advantages to being slow; like not breaking trail, and following the well established boot pack after it’s been put in by five others.

Andy Dorais exposing himself on the final move to the summit.

After taking in some of the best views in the Wasatch, all attention turned to the descent (Box Elder in the background).

The snow was good! We were all surprised at this and committed to head down, knowing that the cliff would be huge and we’d have to skirt it, or hike back up. Andy Dorais exploding with enthusiasm as always.

Tom Goth in the middle section.

This really is one of the steepest, coolest lines around.  It was fun to be there as some of the team skied it for the first time.

Skiing steep, consequential terrain with a large party is tricky and time consuming. There was enough snow sloughing and running that you could knock your partner down, so we leap-frogged from safe zone to safe zone.

This is the fourth year that we’ve had significantly less snowfall. Is this the new Wasatch? I’ve come to the point that instead of complaining and whining and waiting for it to snow, I’m going to lower my standards, shut up, and adapt. It’s easy to come up with plenty of excuses why NOT to go out. Sure, it would be ideal if there was more snow, but I’m not going to let lack of snow get in the way anymore.

We traversed out to skiers right, and even the normal sneak was all rock. So we booted up and over and found a way through. Here, Jason Dorais watches and heckles Andy as he works the crux, and gets back at Jason by taking all the good snow with him.

After clicking back in to my Dynafit bindings, I started skiing the apron.  Suddenly one ski shot off and I fell. The snow wasn’t that firm, but I accelerated quickly towards some toothy rocks below. I tried to arrest with my whippets and when that didn’t work I started punching. This put me into a tomahawk, but I quickly broke through the snow and stopped. I was a little snowy and shaken up, but not injured. I swear I had locked out the binding, but who knows. Scary shit if it had happened 10 minutes earlier in the much steeper and firmer chute. Wake up call and reminder to check your tech bindings carefully EVERYTIME before you drop in.

The Dorais brothers had other commitments for the second half of the day. They skied out Bells together and the four of us pushed on to Chipman Peak with Tom breaking trail. Getting to Chipman was straight forward and even had some good turns on the way. Clouds and wind started picking up on the peak.

I’ve stared at the South Face of Chipman before, but never looked down it, or skied it. Incredible to still be exploring huge new terrain after so many years in this tiny range.

The top turns were funky, but smoothed out to a nice corn in the middle and bottom. Two down and one to go.  Here’s Teague schralping straight toward our final objective, Box Elder.

Terrific crew, good skiing, and a beautiful day! Things were going well. We skinned up over a small ridge and t-boned right into the skin track to Box Elder. One fair sized climb to go. Energy started fading and I fell behind. The ridge was much longer than I’d remembered, and it was a jumbled mess of rock and cornice with lots of switchbacks and mildly technical, very annoying skinning.

As is often the case, the difficulty of the climb was matched by the enjoyment of the the view.  The heavens opened up to greet us on the summit.

The Supercouloir was thin with patches of wind slab that would break out making the skiing challenging. It felt good to be heading down for what I thought would be the final time, but the indefatigable Teague had other plans. Once we were out of the meat of the face, he wanted to traverse, then skin over and up to reach the Shotgun Chutes. It was a great idea because we knew the snow would be much better. But more uphill sounded horrible at this point! Rather than mutiny and ski out alone, I reluctantly put on the skins and followed.

We whooped and hollered through the dense surfy un-tracked snow, and met up together on the apron. By far the best skiing of the day and well worth it. My gear was a bit heavier on the ups, but it was so worth it on the downs. Especially on the finish where with shot legs we thrashed, snow-plowed, and rock hopped our way out on the road to the trail head in Alpine. It wasn’t until we hit the parking lot that we realized we should have done a car shuttle. D’oh! We walked two miles on asphalt and gawked at the smokey red sunset. In the past few months I’ve done some training and skiing with these guys and his is the slowest I’ve seen them move. They are human! Besides, what’s a few more flat miles after a hard twenty.

For the past several years I’ve been transforming my gear and my fitness to allow for bigger days on big lines just like this. It all came together for this great link-up of almost 12,000 feet! Thanks for the invite fellas and crush it in Europe at the World Cup!