It was a little cooler on Saturday. A couple of inches of snow had fallen overnight, just about enough to cover the previous day's tracks. Our original plan was to head to Bonkers, but given the fog / clouds that were not scheduled to clear until the afternoon, we thought it better to ski in Cardiff. Starting from Alta at 8:30am, the winds were definitely blowing some snow around. From Cardiff pass, we had observed some wind loading on the ridges, so until it cleared, our plan was to ski the trees around Power Line Ridge.
After dropping to near the mine, the weather appeared to be clearing, so we ascended first under the High Ivory slide before cutting S a bit to Cardiac Ridge proper. All seemed to be going well until we got within 300' of the top. First the weather closed in, and secondly we started to see some cracking in the newly formed wind slabs. A couple of small pockets broke out, but they were quite manageable - perhaps 3-5' deep and 10' wide.
The section right on the ridge was predictably the worse, but up there, we waited for a while for the weather to clear and the group that was following our track to safely reach us. At this point, we couldn't really see too much, so avalanche poodle Lars disappeared off with a "manage your sluffs". I skied down his sluffs though observing some decent cracking in the snow. Once I was off the ridge and could actually see where I was going, and more importantly, what was not sliding down from above, the skiing was quite good. Probably not the safest decent off Cardiac Ridge.
Feeling that it was going to clear, we headed up to inspect the damage and release a few more slabs.
Getting ready to drop again.
Some real powder!
Cardiac, complete with sluffs.
For a moment, the clouds really lifted and we could see some other lines off the Black Knob.
Our tracks, along with the other group's
We were enjoying the skiing and despite our tight schedule, we hammered it up in 25 minutes for one final lap. Back in the White Room.
From the base of Cardiac, we ascended back to Cardiff Peak. We considered skiing off Superior but felt that given that the sun was out, it was not quite worth the risk. Instead we skied down Cardiff Bowl, first cutting another drift.
Skiing Cardiff Bowl. The keyhole in the background and the usual skintrack from Alta.
From the bowl, we took a line to the West, above Hellgate.
Skiing down with Snowbird in the background.
Back to the car by 2pm : 6,000' in 5 1/2 hours and some good skiing, if a little unsafe.