November 30, 2000
Hangin' with "Granny" In Wolverine Cirque
Photos by Aaron Lefohn and Greg Mercer
©Aaron Lefohn 2000
This was an early one. I was awake at 4:20 am, we left Fred's house at 5:05 am, and were skinning up from the familiar Alta parking lot by 5:45 am. Greg and I were on heavy, alpine gear with alpine trekkers allowing us to free-heel on our downhill equipment. The setup works, but it is many times heavier than telemark gear. We were on our downhill skis for two reasons. One is that we were headed for steep terrain and if it turned out to be icy, we didn't want our heels free (weak I know, but we're still young at this tele thing). Secondly, it hasn't snowed in the Wasatch for over two weeks and we don't have rock, tele gear so we were on our rock, alpine boards. We had to push up the timeline because we were going farther, doing a descent that was going to require rope work, and were carrying more gear up the mountain than usual. We had our standard return time deadline of 10:30 am--enough elements for a perfect adventure : )Greg and Fred had never skied together but I had a feeling they'd get along. The simple fact that they both enthusiastically agreed to meet at 5 am for a morning ski that involved ropes and climbing harnesses sums up the potential bond.
Greg practicing his tuck position, while pretending to prepare his gear. Note the half crazed look on his face. For some reasons, most photos of this guy include that look. Hmmm....
Meet Fred. This is about half way up the climb at Michigan Flats. We hadn't yet seen even a glimmer of light in the sky at this point.
Fred and I at Twin Lakes pass. Note the first light breaking on the horizon. Despite the much heavier gear that Greg and I were carrying, we made it to the pass in under an hour. This was about half an hour better than our last telemark time. Why the difference? Fred enforced the pace.
Twin Lakes pass.
It had been clear all the way up to the pass, but we could see a cloud hovering over the summit of Patsy Marley peak. This is Fred entering the fog zone just below the summit of Patsy Marley. We reached the summit in an hour and twenty minutes--over an hour faster than our previous trip to the peak a few weeks ago on our tele gear.
I know I keep torturing you with the same view over and over again, but I won't apologize. This is Devil's Castle and Sugarloaf peak in the Alta ski resort. The cloud that was partially enshrouding our location at the rim of Wolverine Cirque kept coming and going. The brief clearings amidst the sunrise would bring our preparations to a halt as we gawked in awe at our surroundings.
Mt. Baldy (11,000 ft). I really have no shame on showing this view over and over again.
Sugarloaf peak (~11,000 ft). Did I mention that the sunrise was sublime? One effect we don't have photos of was when the orange sunlight lit up the cloud that was currently engulfing us. The entire cloud, and therefore the air around us, was the color of the sunrise. Did I mention that witnessing sunrises from this spot is adding to my general state of mental health?
This is Greg at our high point for the day. Why is he carrying a rope and smiling, you ask?
This is why. This is what we decided to ski. It is a side, alternative entrance to "Granny's Couloir." While "Granny's" is the mellowest line in the cirque, it is still a luscious 38 degrees or so and this tributary starts out a bit steeper. The line wasn't frighteningly steep, but with 6 inches of new snow, high winds overnight and a thin snow pack, we were very suspicious of the snow stability.
Another shot of our objective. Those are Greg's feet in the foreground.
Despite the look on our faces, Fred and I really were excited about the idea of dropping Fred-on-a-rope down the couloir while I was holding the rope, strapped to some trees. You must understand that this is our idea of morning play time : )
Fred and I preparing. We set up an equalized anchor by stringing webbing around two of the small trees behind me.
The clouds kept coming in and out as we prepared the rigging. Note the sunlit peaks behind us.
One of those "stop everything" moments.
After cross-checking each other's harnesses and knots, Fred dropped in to do the ski cuts on belay. We had about 60 feet of rope.
Fred dodging a few rocks, but making an impressive linkage of turns while still on the rope.
Fred still on belay but almost off. Fred was skiing so fast it was hard for me to give out the rope fast enough, and just before the end of the rope, it got tangled. The knot jammed suddenly in my belay device and pulled Fred to an immediate halt. The anchors held us both taught, but it took me a minute or two to untangle the rope and take Fred off belay. He trailed the rope the rest of the way down as a giant powder cord. The idea being that if he did get caught in a slide, hopefully a piece of the rope would be on the surface and would lead us right to him. We all, of course, had avalanche beacons and shovels with us as well.
This is Fred , probably just after I pulled him to a sudden stop given the tightly stretched rope. He's just about to enter the main "Granny's Couloir."
Fred, free of his constraints enjoying the new, uncut powder.
Ahhhh.....
My turn. There is something appealing to me about skiing with my harness on and an ice ax on my back. Not sure why it looks like I'm snarling (perhaps the 4:20am alarm clock preceded by the midnight bedtime and restless sleep)--truly, I was psyched!!
Me dropping in--trying to avoid the rocks and deep rock wells (holes) that Fred had uncovered. I was able to open it up after the first few, cautious turns, but I'm certainly not displaying that textbook, instructor form here. Oh well : )
I'm not sure what I am doing here, but it is definitely not in the Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA) skiing manual! Perhaps I'm checking how deep the rock well is with my pole or perhaps I'm just skiing very poorly. Regardless, the name of the game out here is to have fun. Of course the personal goal is always to flash the run with fluidity and grace, but with an adventure like this, just being there is a good portion of the experience. Luckily for my need-to-feel-the-rhythm part of my brain, the lower section was creamy, smooth, uncut powder : )
Fred and I's tracks. The main "Granny's Couloir" comes down from top left and we joined it from the right. We were out of communication with Greg at this point, but knew he was up there in the fog somewhere.
Found him. As usual, the ELF camera was frozen dead so there is no footage of Greg's run so you'll have to trust me that he left some very nice tracks. We all got to ski untracked snow. The cleft of snow/rock directly above Greg's head is Roman's Couloir (see post from last season). It may have enough snow to be skiable, but it would be very dicey in the top section. It really needs three or four more feet of snow to be fully opened.
I suggested to Fred that we climb out of the cirque in a more direct fashion than the usual, long traverse back to Twin Lakes pass. I had intended to take a path that we could skin up, however, Fred took my idea of "direct" a bit farther than I'd intended.
Fred showing us that ski boots can indeed be good rock climbing foot apparel.
Greg and I had already put our skis in the snow and were getting ready to step into them to ski around the cliff when Fred looked down from the top of his scramble and said, "That was actually pretty fun." That did it, Greg and I shouldered our skis and followed the boot tracks.
Fred was right, in a sick sort of way, this did look like fun! (seriously)
There is truly no better way to start the day than with a pre-9 am, knee-mantle/stem with ski poles in one hand and skis in the other : )Perhaps it is best, but this is where the photos stop. We did reach the pass pretty quickly after this and were on our way back to the car by 9 am. Unfortunately, I made a tactical judgment error while considering my options perched on top of a 10-12 foot cliff. Fred and Greg had chosen to ski off the smaller side of the cliff, noting that the landing of the big part looked dangerously flat. From my perspective (perhaps it was a bit skewed by getting up so early), it looked fine. I should have thought about the fact that Fred and Greg are both pretty bold skiers and wouldn't normally pass up such an opportunity, but I instead thought, "That looks pretty fun!" and jumped. The flight went perfectly, but the landing wasn't quite what I expected. The landing wasn't flat--it was worse. I landed in a hole with my skis pointed uphill. The compression, combined with my 25 lb. pack, smashed me into a three-foot tall ball. The pivot point in the suspension system was my knees and one of them attempted to go through my jaw. For better (my teeth's sake) or worse (my tongue's sake), my tongue was in the way and got chomped between my teeth.
I didn't crash and skied out of the landing on my feet, but was screaming in shock and pain. I spit blood the rest of the way back to the car and...umm...skied very conservatively. We did make it back to town by 10 am and I was at work plenty early enough to prepare for my meeting with my boss at 12:30 pm.
Food was a different story, however. I was ravenous after the morning's activities but quickly realized that my throbbing tongue was not going to allow me to eat food that required chewing. Deciding that blending my salami sandwich was a bad idea, I resorted to buying soup. I am still on a liquid diet today, three days later. I didn't lose any of my tongue but I did severely rearrange it's topology. Note to self: No jumping cliffs with potentially flat landings and no jumping cliffs while wearing a heavy pack.
Go find it, but keep your tongue inside your mouth...
