A strange thing happened on Thursday night: It rained. This in itself is not strange, but what was odd was the rain-snow line. Below 8400ft it was rain, and above it was powder with nothing in between. I went out with a guide on Friday. Our original plan was to go into Loan Peak Wilderness, but given the lower elevation approach, we decided to see what was going on in Silver Fork.
From Alta, we took a direct line up the N side of Grizzly going past Davenport towards Honeycomb, breaking trail most of the way.
It was still a little cloudy and the temperatures had dropped from the day before.
We skied the NW aspect of Silver Fork East Bowl. Apart from a little wind crust at the top, it was good all the way to the bottom.
Close up of the line.
We skinned up the NE facing aspect of the West Bowl and skied that.
This was even better.
Soon, we had company.
We ascended the same track, and skied down Hideaway, N through the trees into Days Fork. Then we climbed back to the Silver/Days ridge and skied a steep W aspect down to the flats - QuickSilverDays. Exit was via Days Fork and it was horrendous. Below the 8400ft there was an evil rain crust. You had two choices: ski at 400 mph and hope you didn't face plant, or ski at 4mph and hope you didn't bust your ACL when you got stuck in the crust. A testing descent....
On Saturday, I went back up towards Silver. I went the wrong way, going more towards the Silver/Days ridgeline than Grizzly. Since it was already 11am and about 50F, I was having problems cutting a skin track into the S facing ridge. Halfway I gave up, went down to the Grizzly lot, and ascended up the S side of Grizz, before cutting up on a less sun-affected aspect to Davenport.
Looking back towards Superior and Emma Ridge.
There had been plenty of traffic in the West Bowl. Our tracks are still visible on the RHS.
I skied the same aspect as Friday in the East Bowl of Silver Fork, before ascending to Davenport and skiing back down to the same spot via Easy Out (something like that). I ascended again, traversing round Grizzly and coming back to the parking lot via a SW aspect. Much better than the slog down to BCC.