twin peaks-high five

The Powder Keg really kicked my ass! It took a solid week to feel energized and recovered.

Thursday was the last day of winter. A winter that acted more like spring, and has now been replaced by a spring that already feels like summer. I really wanted to get out and go big fearing that these temps and no freezing at night could end skiing in the Wasatch. Deciding what to ski was pretty easy. Right now you’ve got to get high and stay high. Many of the big lines on the prominent Wasatch peaks just never filled in this season. Back to Twin Peaks seemed like the good call. It may be second in height in the Central Wasatch, but when it comes to the quantity of quality steep and interesting lines it’s #1.

Ski it all, before it melts away!

The gearing up and prepping the night before is all part of the fun. I’m a fan of laying everything out before packing it up. Here are the provisions for the attempt at the High Five. I’m not a calorie counter, but prefer to just feel things out. I do tend to cramp easily, so plenty of fluids and fuel are a must for bigger days. I’ve been using a combination of Sports Legs as well as FRS recovery drink and they seem to work wonders on endurance events. I just got cut from the ProBar athlete team, but luckily I still have a few bars kicking around. The delicious bars will be missed, but the company……..well I guess if you don’t have anything nice to say, you’re not supposed to say anything at all. 😉

The art of guesstimating.

A shipment of new spring gear just arrived from Mountain Hardwear. Excited to try out my new Stretch Ozonic jacket, it replaces one of my favorite all-time pieces, the Effusion, that I tore up while bushwhacking on Nebo earlier this year. I’m a fan of the highly breathable lightweight soft shells for this time of year when you’re not dealing with heavy snow, or really cold winds.

With the car parked at Broads Fork I hit the trail in shoes at 4:45. The plan was to top out with the sunrise. Luckily the overnight temps dropped low enough to give the snow a good deep freeze. The booting up the East Face was quick and easy with the help of crampons.

We’re reading “The Lady In The Ore Bucket” in my book club this month. I highly recommend this thorough accounting of the development of the Tri-Canyons. It mentions the first known ascent of Broad Forks Twin Peaks by Mormon surveyors sent to take readings to aid in plotting downtown Salt Lake City. It took them eight hours to climb the peak. Not bad! It’s fun to hear how and why the canyons, peaks, etc received their names. Clearly, the early pioneers couldn’t afford to cart the weight of their imaginations across the plains and so we’ve ended up with an inordinate amount of Bald Mountains and Twin Peaks.

Shadows of man and mountains.

I wasn’t really sure what to ski first until I topped out. Initially, I thought I’d ski Lisa Falls first, but the sun hadn’t hit it yet. At 8:13am I skied right back down the east side in firm, but edge-able snow in full sunlight. It was smooth and non breakable and I even encountered several turns of wind effected powder halfway down where the chute twisted more to the north.

It always looks much worse than it is.

Booting right back up, one down, several to go. Perhaps prematurely, but Lisa Falls skied next at 9:37am. Day time heating and resulting rockfall and wet snow that comes with it convinced me that firmer turns should be traded for a safer climb out. The skiing up top was great, frozen corn, more like polenta really.

This quickly ended as the line pinched and debris littered the next 2K feet. There was enough snow to keep skis on. However there were two cruxes. A narrow choke was bypassed by walking on some rocks. Then, a short ice bulge was managed with some careful edge work and by using both whippets in an aggressive manner.

Sharp whippets and dull wits can get you into and out of many sketchy situations.

Unsure of where I’d stop, but knowing that my skis would tell me when, I continued. The debris softened and it wasn’t horrible, it was bumpy spring skiing on south facing in the Wasatch. You get accustomed to it.  I pulled up once I hit the section where the chute spits you out and it flattens significantly. Around 2k feet of skiing. The snow was still too firm to be tempted into traveling further down the lower tube.

After topping back out for the third time, I sucked down some fluids and snacks from the cache I had left and hiked over to the west summit. At 11:47 am I was a bit ahead of prime-time, but better firm than sloppy. The West face was actually great skiing! Just barely starting to soften (polenta) I rode it all the way down into the small group of pines you can see in the apron in the photo below. Then I turned right aroud and booted back up almost 2K with crampons on again. My calves were getting tired, but I felt good and things were going well.

The stomach can only take so many bars, gels, and blocks. Real food is a nice addition. Pie in the sky!

The last time I skied the Northwest was around 2007 in T-race boots and Atomic Big Daddy skis! Back then people still tele’d in the backcountry and a 6K foot day was huge. Ha! Now I’m back having twice as much fun, doing twice as much vertical, on gear that weighs half as much. At 12:56 I dropped in and found a surprising amount of nice wind buffed pow up high and perfect corn on the apron. Perhaps I ran it out a bit further than necessary, but I was enjoying it way too much to stop. When I did, it was again down in the trees at the end of the wide open apron. Totally worth it! I did start to feel pretty worked on the boot back up. It was nice going slow and knowing that this would be the final climb on the day.

Once on top for the fifth and final time (get it now, High Five) I took a nice break and ate a bunch of food and finished the fluids. At 2:44pm I pushed off down the north ramp looking to connect with the ice cliffs and exit back out Broads Fork. This line was the most interesting since it was the only line I’d never previously skied. Skinning up in the dark I wasn’t able to inspect the ice cliffs and map a way through. In a big year it doesn’t look like it’s a big deal, but I was a little worried about it in these low tide conditions. One way to find out!

More fun wind blown turns off the top and down the ridge. The ramp then rolls over into a chute that lies above a massive cliff. The snow was back in the shade and hard as rock. Total shit! I mad e a few puckered turns and slowly and safely slid my way down. After that I cut hard skiers left above all the ice cliffs and hugged the cliffs that make rise to create the “diving board” run. I skirted cliffs and dodged glide cracks. It was really cool to get so near to these strange anomaly of snow that break free in a major way every spring.

Lower down the turns were primo! Knifing through warm honey butter would be the best way to describe it. My fresh tune probably helped, but it was sooo good I couldn’t beleive it. I guess it was in part because I had expected it to be very bad at this point in the day. A big smile all the way out, feeling like I had got away with something.

Here is a good view of the final run from the summit ramp, down the large chute, and cutting lookers right to the sun/shade line and down from there. Not many other good options.

Fine schmearing all the way until the trail shoes.

Really impressed with this lightweight ski set-up. If conditions are good it’s enough boot and ski to travel far and still enjoy the turns.

“Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative.”  -H. G. Wells-

All in all it was a perfect way and day to finish up winter in the Wasatch with over 11k feet of climbing and skiing.