Since the skin track was already in and there were plenty of new things to explore…..we decided to head back down to Mount Nebo yesterday. Andy spied a fun looking chute to check out in the massive upper cirque. The only issue was that Andy had to be back in SLC by mid-day. Lars K and I met at Andy’s at 5:30 am. We drove down and were at the the gravel lot in Mona just after 7 am (Well within the speed limit I’m sure). Our skin track was in almost to the huge amphitheater so the first several thousand feet flew by.
I was managing to keep up until my body told me to eat and drink something. I listened and obeyed. Apparently Andy and Lars don’t require fuel. I stopped for about 2-3 minutes and that’s all it takes to get left in the dust with these guys. The chute Andy had been interested in looked more difficult than we had time for, so we opted for the Champagne chute instead. Luckily I’d never skied it before, so that kept the “ski new shit this week” theme alive. I tried pretty hard to catch them on the final climb, but we didn’t meet up until the top of the chute.
Not necessarily a bad thing, since they were breaking all the trail.
All the times I’ve been up here I’ve only skied the NW couloir which is one of the biggest in the Wasatch. I didn’t actually know the Champagne existed until a few years ago. We topped out on the chute, but not the summit. We have all been there before and we were in a rush.
The snow was chalky in places and breakable in other spots. Lars with some edge work.
Andy following in hot pursuit.
Use the edges hard enough and the wind would blow the snow up! Andy in there somewhere. Does this count as a face-shot?!
We leap frogged until the leg burn was too great, then pulled aside and let the other guy go. Standard procedure.
Andy cut over into the funky broken zone out skiers right and got some bonus chute in.
Another day, another new line! What’s funny, is the more I get out, the more I see that I want to ski. Does it ever end! I hope not.
The trees on the ski out were still good, but the road was horrible. The snowmobile tracks had firmed up and the banks on the side were breakable crust. We had a fast and furious ski out right to the car.
We weren’t going for a speed ascent/descent we just had to beat the clock to get Andy to his lunch date. However, we did go car-to-car in just under 4 hours which was pretty damn fast! It was pretty surreal to be back home in SLC by 12:30 having skied one of the longest lines in the Wasatch. Big days are possible in short amounts of time with light gear and proper motivation!
