Report from June 5, 2024
Yesterday was my final ski day of the Northern Hemisphere winter.
Ski day #190.
Ski day #463 of the previous 546 days.
I’ve been snowboarding 6 days per week for 17 months straight (78 weeks).
I’m exhausted…
- Summit (really a notch): 11,300′
- Automobile: 7,900′
- Vertical From Automobile: 3,400′
- Vertical skied: 3,400′ (1,000′ within the chute)
- Max Pitch: 50º
- Avg Pitch: 42º
- Side: East Northeast
- Distance: 5.5-miles spherical journey
- Time From Automobile to High: 3 hours and quarter-hour
- Automobile to Automobile Time: 4 hours & 6 minutes
- Really helpful Tools: Crampons, Ice Axe x2, skins
Yesterday I made a decision to go for a basic.
Pipeline Couloir at Snowbird Ski Resort in Utah.
This chute is steep, it’s epic, and it’s virtually by no means open through the winter.
The important thing to snowboarding this chute is hitting it after they shut.
This was my third time snowboarding this chute.
- Might 18, 2019
- July 21, 2023
- June 5, 2024
Of the three occasions I’ve gotten up and in Snowbird’s most important crevasse, yesterday was the very best…
I began climbing at 8:30am.
It was already about 60ºF on the base.
I hiked in ski boots up patchy, smooth snow.
I made it as much as the bottom of Mid-Gad chairlift in about 1 hour (quick for me).
I used to be shifting quick to verify I didn’t find yourself within the chute too late.
It hadn’t frozen properly in a single day and I used to be involved concerning the snow within the chute being yucky.
I saved my head down and moved properly.
I hit the bottom of the chute after about 2 hours and quarter-hour.
To my shock and disbelief, somebody had already skied the rattling factor!
Nice information.
This meant there was a bootpack and he would have sluffed and knocked down all of the unhealthy floor snow.
I might see his booter and a big pile of sluff particles on the backside of the chute.
Excellent.
The one problem was that he was some type of big…
Large footprints and ridiculously giant areas between steps.
It was additionally unusual that he appeared to not have skins with him…
His tracks got here in from above, switched to booting, after which his ski monitor disappeared arduous skiers proper in a traverse.
Made me surprise if he was an worker who used the tram.
Who is aware of.
It took me 45 minutes besides up the chute and I arrived on prime after 3 hours and quarter-hour of strolling.
A average east wind saved me cool up the chute and practically acquired me to don my ski jacket for the descent.
I lingered not.
The highest layer of snow within the chute was a moist slop that sluffed prime to backside when disturbed.
Fortuitously, the man who skied it earlier than me had sluffed practically all of that nasty snow out of the chute and onto the apron.
The highest was steep and I used to be a bit intimidated concerning the first turns.
I counted myself in and dropped in.
The snow was beautiful!
I blasted down the chute with no worry, no fear of sluff, and no apprehension.
Pure pleasure.
I skied the chute correct in solely 50-seconds and got here hooting out the underside.
The apron was sticky.
So sticky.
I glided and pushed my manner all the way down to the decrease mountain previous the gad chairs.
I dropped beneath the highway I’d taken up, sidehilled underneath the Mid-Gad chair, and located good snowboarding on the decrease mountain.
The patchy snow was the spotlight.
The moist grass snowboarding was supreme.
I giggled and snorted as I rolled throughout 100′ stretches of grass.
I used to be in a position to snow and dust ski proper to the car parking zone.
I hadn’t taken my skis off for the reason that very prime of the chute 11,300′.
I used to be past stoked!
Final time I skied this chute I dust walked from the bottom of the chute all the best way to the car parking zone including hours to the voyage.
Pipeline was the proper technique to finish the season.
Thanks, Utah!
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