Since I was last in the backcountry, 3 weeks ago, 10' of snow had fallen. With the accompanying winds and yo-yoing temperatures, the fragile snowpack was blowing up. In period there had been numerous 'high' danger ratings and a large number of accidents. In short, low angle terrain was here to stay. I arrived late in Salt Lake for a week of touring carrying a dreadful cold. The next morning, Saturday, with a few hours of sleep in me, I struggled to the base of BCC wanting a quiet day. The plan was to start in Beartrap Fork and ski some of the low angle faces off the Ice Cream Cone. The drive up the canyon was delayed waiting for UDOT to unleash a fairly large slide in Stairs (pictures tomorrow).
It was a quick skin to the summit
There were big naturals visible all over the place: Days Draw
High Ivory
It was still quite cold, so before the rising temps could trash the snow, we hit S-facing.
The snow was quite deep and already getting heavy. On the lower angles it was sometimes hard to do anything but point.
Ascending back to the summit, we then hit a slightly steeper E-facing shot. This was much better.
One more climb back to the summit and we skied west, down Short Swing, and back to the Spruces Trailhead.
A short day - but quite long enough given how I was feeling. The snow was quite deep in places and getting heavy by mid afternoon. Any trailbreaking was a slog and the steeper N-facers were definitely calling. Bragging rights went to the person who put these tracks above the houses at the base of BCC.
