There had been some new snow over the weekend but I was playing tour guide in the resort. The storm had been a bit of a mess with a large amount of graupel, high winds, and generally poor bonding to the old surface. Temperatures had been yo-yoing too, and there had been a number of incidents over the weekend. On Monday, under southerly flow, temperatures soared. N and high was the only place to go, so with Broads having seen traffic on Sunday, we started nice and early and went to the Pfeiff.
Route was the standard White Pine - Red Pine.
We had thought about an ascent of the Pfeiff, booting up the E-face off a notch in the ridge. The winds were starting to nuke at this point and I had left my crampons and ice axe at home. We shelved the idea and instead looked at skiing the NE face as this seemed the safest bet. To lookers left the wind had created a 6-12" slab and there was overhanging cornice danger. To lookers right, the slope swings too far eastwards. Stuck in the middle, under the rock wall, the slab was not at all cohesive, though there was a load of graupel underneath and the occasional pinging rock from above. So we didn't have much to work with, but what was there was quite good.
Lap One.
Lap Two.
Lap Three.
By this time the wet activity was really starting to get going so we headed out.
We took a moment to admire our work.
Looking back at Chipman Peak, we could see the slide that we heard earlier.
Exit was via Red Pine to the up-track. Higher up there were still some good turns to be had.
The bottom was nasty and sticky. The end of the tour and the end of my touring for the season in the Wasatch.
