After ascending Kessler, Timp, and Deseret in a week I wanted another peak so we went to Box Elder (11,100'). The weather on Wednesday had been quite poor with significant wind as a front moved in from the South. A few inches fell during the night and on Thursday morning it was generally miserable. We didn't really know what to expect as we departed from the trailhead (5,800') other than considerable wind damage. Our route was NE along Dry Creek before swinging round and taking the North Buttress to the summit.
The new snow made skinning possible right from the trailhead.
It wasn't particularly cold but it was quite humid. We found some nice hoar frost on the way up.
The early morning doom and gloom started to clear, making us quite optimistic. We could even see where we were heading: the N buttress, NW cirque, NW buttress, and the chute that we took later.
Once we got to about 10,500 the clouds/fog rolled in. We were also finding many wind damaged slopes. We decided to ski one of the N facing shotgun chutes and go for the summit later if it cleared. Once we got into wind protected areas the snow was quite good, though we did experience some sluffing of the new.
The weather was still a bit dodgy so we ascended again, taking another pitch through the trees towards the NE Buttress. As we ascended we found variable conditions, so we decided to head towards a chute that we had spied from below.
On the way up we had company.
There was also plenty more riming.
It was starting to clear but lacking time to summit, we headed for the chute.
Wishbone Ridge.
The Pfeiff.
Lone Peak and the Front.
The entrance of the chute was a bit sketchy as it first required negotiating a hanging snowfield above some rather large cliffs.
There was a bit of a choke, followed by a couple of nice aprons.
It was getting late in the day and we had some nice light as the sun started to go down.
