Every now and again, cool stuff falls into my lap that changes things a little, the Skidmap project was one of those and now, in that vein, wasatchbackcountryskiing.com. I haven't had a chance to really explore it as of yet, but it appears to be a complete listing of every known major route in the wasatach AND know avalanche fatality spots. Pretty solid. It will be added to the link list so check it out.
November 2012
First off, let me hit the highlights:
24 inches in 24 hours
48 base
15% to 8% to 3% density
Thats according to alta.com
What we actually measured was 140 cm to the old snow...on saturday before the storm finished.
140 cm is over 4 and half feet! 55 inches!
And still coming!
Okay so the plan was to do gunsight, like I have done in the past with both great success and great failure. Its not a big tour, but its tradition. Every year I've had a good gunsight tour, its been a good ski year, every year I didn't have a good tour, it wasn't great and last year I didn't get to go at all and we all know how that turned out. Im not a superstitious type but this winter is pretty much down to me having a good season opener.
It didn't start well, Wade got to my place at 9 like we planned but the power just went out and so we had to run to get a generator for my dad who is on a by-pap. After that we had to clear the driveway so he could get around, so we got a late start. No biggie. Wade also forgot his skins, which was very very bad until I remembered my spare set, cut for 169/80's and we put them on his 178/105's. I was pretty worried about CSF (congenital skin failure) as it has happened to people in my party more times than I care to count (turns out they killed it!)
So back to gunsight, we started hiking up, past the warning signs telling us not to go up until we were stopped by a patroler on a snow mobile telling us to pack it in or face a fine. Normally I would blow it off but he said they would be bombing in that area that day (they didn't BTW). So I didn't get to do gunsight, which was a bummer and we headed down to start up the summer road to try out toms ridge, since that was about all I could handle with my death cough that I had been dealing with.
It worked....sort of. Turns out there IS too much of a good thing. Because of the snow was so deep we couldn't break free and just plowed, chest deep, through it. A steeper slope would have fixed it, but a steeper slow would be a no go because of the amount of snow. Catch 22.
We still had a great time, as evidenced by Wade's smile, and even made some new friends. Hey Chris!
All in all it was pretty good for a first outting, no one died or got injured, I got to try out my new custom fit boots
yeah. It was so good even being stuck was a good time.
Check out the google map here
And download the earth file here