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12/23/2023

I skinned up the cat track along the base of Grizzly Gulch in Utah and eyed the untouched snow bowl my friend wanted to ski. Thirty minutes later, he went out of sight over a roll as he dropped into the line, and the radio I wore on my backpack chirped on.

 “Avalanche! Avalanche! Avalanche!” 

“Jake, are you there?” I responded.

“Yeah, I’m okay. That whole face just ripped out on me, but I’m good.”

This was the first time I had been confident enough to go into the backcountry with any significant amount of new snow on the ground. I had finally overcome the notion that I held: new snow means danger, keep out! But it hadn’t paid off, to say the least. It wasn’t until the following winter that I felt comfortable enough again to assess terrain as being safe after a snowfall.

In late December, I set off into the backcountry again in a blizzard with my new friend Johnny. We skinned to the summit of Cardiff Peak across from Alta Ski Area and skied down the backside on a run called Mustachio. The snow seemed bottomless, and we were both stoked that we had persisted through the weather. We had spent the past week in the backcountry, digging and analyzing snow pits at every elevation and aspect in the Central Wasatch as part of a professional-level avalanche course through the American Avalanche Institute. I knew the snowpack well, and I had set off confidently.

Johnny was fast and took off in front when we started on the skin track back over the ridge. The line we planned on doing next was Suicide Chute, a line I had skied several times before when I had a short stint as a student at the University of Utah. The line’s easy access and relatively short duration make it a quick-lap classic in the Wasatch range, which runs 160 miles along the western edge of the Rocky Mountains and the eastern edge of the Great Basin. But because it’s well known, it’s hard to get first tracks on, especially given the daring or maybe uninformed nature of some backcountry skiers in the area.  

“Alright,” I said as the snow deepened by the second. “I think if we drop in over there,” I pointed to a bend in the ridgeline, “and traverse from the bottom of the cliff band down low, we can just about ski to the bottom of the chute.” 

“Sounds good man!” he said. 

We dropped in and leapfrogged each other in small pitches to stay in eyeshot amid the heavy snowfall. The south-facing slope was much worse skiing than the north-facing slope had been. Six inches of light, Utah snow had done little to cover up the underlying icy crust. 

“Hopefully, it's more consolidated in the chute,” I said when we stopped for a moment. We traversed under the cliff band to the mouth of the chute and took our skis off, strapping them to the outside of our packs to start the bootpack up. Johnny hopped in front again without a word. He moved slower this time, hampered by the deep snow, even though we could see someone up ahead of us setting a track. 

We were a third of the way up the chute and had just passed the person who started ahead of us when Johnny and I switched leads. I quickly realized why he had given up the lead so soon. The snow was waist to chest deep, and I found myself literally trying to swim through the powder. Each step took several seconds and only got me six inches further uphill. After ten minutes of the slog, I asked about the time. 

“One o’clock,” said Johnny. “Want to keep going or call it here?” 

I looked up, and spindrift avalanches started shedding off the walls of the chute. Spindrifts are wind-driven and don’t usually accumulate much snow as they move, but as the avalanches blew off the cliff walls, they started burying us deeper and deeper in the snow. 

“Makes you think twice, doesn’t it?” said Johnny, gesturing towards the snow coming down. It was the first time I had heard him voice any concern, and I was relieved I wasn’t the only one. 

“Yeah,” I said. “But let’s keep going.” I could see the top of the chute 200 feet above us, tantalizingly close. 

If I hadn’t spent two hours every day for the last week practicing digging and documenting snow pits at every aspect and elevation in the Central Wasatch, I don’t know if I would have kept going. But on this day, I knew every layer of snow by heart, what the new snow was falling on, the type of snow coming down, and what that meant for stability in the snowpack. The surface was rounded snow grains formed by the warm, dry weather the area had been experiencing for many weeks. This meant it was solid for bonding with new snow. The new snow was “stellar” snow grains with very low water content. I knew this extremely light snow didn’t necessarily bond well, but it wouldn’t create more than some loose sluff until more accumulated. 

It’s not always clear how to go about becoming a better mountain-goer; the next progression sometimes seems inaccessible because new knowledge can be hard to come by. While many factors we consider are nuanced, it becomes an easy misconception that it is too big of a leap from where you’re at to where you want to be because the information is too technical, or it is too big of a step to take on your own to get to the next level. To test myself safely, studying the mountains and gaining knowledge by any means possible has been my key. Although the path in front is not always clear, perseverance has not failed me yet in my endless goal of mountain progression – technical knowledge, skill-based, or otherwise. I realize that when I am truly ready for the next step, it comes in a way that is much less epiphany-like or shrouded in mystique than I expect. Although there are landmarks along the way, the next step is rarely a step you have to consciously take; you simply glide into and past that point in a linear progression. This is not always the case, but more often than not it is not a leap and bound to get to the next level. As my knowledge has built on itself, equally has my confidence to persevere and break through further barriers in the mountains. I find myself more capable now than I thought was possible in many ways. 

I trudged a little longer until I reached a sluff path where a spindrift avalanche had dragged a little surface snow with it, leaving a slightly firmer surface to walk on. I walked from slide path to slide path to stay out of the deep snow until we finally topped out on the ridge. We dropped our packs and gave each other a quick hug. It had not been an easy effort, and we knew it was about to pay off with an incredible ski run. The top of the chute was a small notch on the south ridge of the otherwise huge and technical Mt. Superior.

“You led most of the chute,” said Johnny. “You ski first!”

I put on my skis, dropped in, and made a few turns. The snow blew over me as I carved down the chute, teasing the rock walls with my turns. 

Johnny met me where we had first transitioned from our skis to the boot pack, and he led the last bit down to the car. It was 1:30 p.m., and we hadn’t stopped to eat or drink since breakfast early that morning. I’ve never so willingly eaten the raisins in trail mix in my life. I gloated about having taken the next step in my mountain career while I mushed the disgusting shriveled fruit in my mouth and laid back in the car seat in full contentment.