Last day of the season and it was going to be h.o.t. and Box Elder was the target.A bit of a slog getting there, but hopefully this time I would get to the top and thus never have to go back.
The plan was to ski a few laps in the Shotgun chutes (the two slide paths on the lower left) and then hit the main NW cirque from the summit. We had entertained skiing the NE, but the soaring temperatures put that idea to rest.
Starting early from Alpine, given it was mid April and 5,600', it was fairly obvious we'd be walking for a while.
After about 45 minutes there was enough snow to start skinning.
As we climbed out of the lower part of the drainage, we could see the enormous amount of snow still on the S faces of Dry Fork. The Pfeifferhorn:
Lone Peak and Big Horn Peak:
Looking down Dry Fork towards the Stansburys and the cliffs of the NW Cirque.
Making good time, we ascended to 10,300 and skied the first Shotgun Chute.
A few rollerballs lower down, but as expected, despite the heat, due N was still good.
Back to the top of the Shotguns, the others started to ascend the summit ridge, whilst I put in another lap.
At the bottom of the chutes, I ran into a certain Wizard and we ascended together to the summit, passing some big cornices on the way.
From the top, you could see all sorts of things: Timpanogos.
Utah Lake with Nebo in the distance.
Skiing off the summit.
It was a little scratchy for the first few hundred feet, but soon we were skiing damp powder.
Whilst the rest of the us skied down the gut, TB had spied some line on the left.
..which soon became quite interesting...
The Wizard burning through the lower part of the Cirque.
In the lower part, it suddenly became very damp, and there was some quite epic hurky-jurky.
Waiting for the others, I noticed that it was unbelievably hot and wanted to get out of there as soon is I could!
Back up again for one more lap on the Shotguns. Despite the application of much skin-wax it was still a slogfest in afternoon heat. The skiing wasn't much good at this point either. The exit was a little tedious as the wax on my skis wasn't much better.
Saying goodbye to the Lone Peak.
And so the season drew to a close, walking down the path to Alpine. 9,000' on the day.
