Since leaving on Sunday it had continued to snow. The powder reports were bottomless and I was missing it all. Saturday was looking promising until a gale at the end of the week trashed all the snow. Plans for White Limbo were put on hold again and following a strange report about the snow quality on Superior, we decided at the last minute to head in the direction of the Coalpit.
Starting from White Pine, and with the ceiling hovering around 10,000', we quickly ascended to Red Pine Knob. Skiing down into Maybird, one turn and one faceplant later it became wildly apparent that whatever was going on in the E end of LCC clearly wasn't happening in the W end. From about 9,400' we climbed to the Hogum / Maybird Ridge, a bit N of the Obelisk. The Hogum 200 laid before us: how bad could it be? Quite bad actually. Descending through the thickening gloom, at best it was "rideable Sastrugi" and worst, it was variable / breakable garbage. At the bottom, relieved to have made it through alive, we could see the damage that the combination of a sizeable natural and the Venturri winds had created. It was at this point that LM decided he'd had enough, and disappeared off into lower Hogum.In the utter absense of good snow, our eyes were now firmly on the prize: The Hypo!
The Hypo is a couloir separating the Dresden Face from the various entrances to the Coalpit.
Apart from being a bit narrow and steep at the top, it is a nice 45 degree 600' shot that opens out onto a big apron.
From the Hogum flats, we were able to skin most of the way up, before having to free climb the final pitch of 5-10 to get to the summit.
Well, no. The 700' was a boot up into the thickening fog.
One dropped glove later we were there at the top.
The weather clearly was not going to cooperate with us, so in the absense of anything better to do, in we dropped.
The first 10 turns were a little tight: not necessarily the best place to remember that the hop turn isn't in my arsenal anymore. On the other hand since I couldn't really see where I was going, it didn't make too much difference.
With the exception of one tiny choke, the snow coverage was quite good, and below that, we could open it up.
At the top of the Apron, we turned around and booted back up the Hypo. At the top, the visibility had managed to get worse, but undeterred we headed along the ridge, trying to find an appropriate place to drop into the Coalpit Headwall. We were greeted by Sastrugi. It actually skied quite well, and when we eventually got below the fog, we could see how much Sastrugi there really was: it was just like Mount Nebo!
We took a left line, skiing under the big wall.
Avalanche debris soon necessitated a switch back to the center.
The gully was amazingly filled in. So much so that we were able to ski the waterfall: no rap required, just a tele-turn!
Not an epic snow or weather day, but a day for some classic Wasatch terrain. 6,400' logged.