High Uintas Memorial Weekend TR

[Xover]

Drove up Mirror Lake Highway early Saturday evening. Inside info I had was that road was barricaded off at Murdock Basin, but that with "proper" UDOT identification barricades could be moved, replaced and drive on up to end of plowing. All was true except 1 little piece of info not provided that a front end loader would be parked sideways across MLH right behind the barricades. Sorry I don't have a pic of it, at the time of the situation I was thinking more along the lines of we're screwed than of taking a pic of the situation at hand. Some skillful driving, good spotting and a few brances scraped and we were on our way with literally 2" to spare each side of the sno mo trailier.

From whence we came and where we car camped both nights; beautiful site eh? We were gonna sled in and pitch tent up on the pass, but with sleds at our disposal and only a few miles to the pass, we just decided to sled in and out each day. We went for a quick re-con run that night and its a good thing we did. One sled had a leak in the coolant hose and kept overheating. Thinking it was just low on coolant, we run back to Park Shitty that night for some coolant and upon filling it back up and starting it we then discovered the leak.




Gearing up the next morning (Sunday) after finally getting sled #2 started after damn near an hour of trying. We both felt like we had already climbed 2k of vert; a work out for sure. Friggin sleds. Definitely a love/hate relationship.




Our objective: Bald Mountain. Tyson Bradley's book says it is "only" 1700 feet of vert topping out at 11,943. I think he has a typo in his book cause it sure felt like more going up and it looked damn BIG from the top. We opted for 4th class scrambling most of the way since snow was rotten around the rocks and we didn't want to subject ourselves the whole slide path on the way up.




Tele buddy J West at start of scramble




Looking back 1/3 of the way up




Views were both stunning and huge all around us. Lines waiting to be skied everywhere.

Hayden Peak to the North with Mirror Lake Highway in front of it




Mt. Agassiz also to the North and East of Hayden with a thawing Mirror Lake in front of it




Unknown Peak 1




Unknown Peak 2




Reids Peak to the West of Bald Mt. This thing looked Gnarrrrrrrly!!! Tyson says you can ski the south face of it; looked like the line had melted out to me.




A few obligatory summit shots follow:

J West on summit ridge with Reids behind him




J again further along on summit ridge with Hayden Peak behind him




Team Karhu gaping out on a ledge with a 30-40' drop right in front of him. I told him he should just jib off the thing being the rockstar spancered skier that he is

[Xover]

summit of Bald Mt. Beautiful, awe inspiring summit, heh?? Guess that's why they call it "Bald" Mt.




Rather than jibbing the flat rock, J had picked out a line that I didn't even contemplate from the bottom to ski off the top. Our ascent route is on the right and our descent route in the middle. Circle is where I set off a small wet slide; more on that later




As powstash would say, "only one way to get this view"
Lots of love waiting below




J had picked out a sliver of snow off the top that was literally only 190cm wide. It was the only one that went all the way through from the top without starting way skier's right and traversing over somewhere. We wanted fallline baby so this is what we went for.

J contemplating the start




J at the narrow crux. Trackhead would've made 100 jump turns by this point




J turning and burning




J smearing it out




I dont' have any pics of the upper section after this cause we both sketched ourselves a little bit. I took the next section and we agreed that I'd ski down below the big cliff on lookers right just above my red circle in the painted picture. I took it a little too close to the rocks on looker's right and found the snowpack was a little thinner than I expected there and set off a small wet slide about 15-20' wide that just about took my downhill ski with it. I pulled my ski back from the fat, overweight dragon and watched it go a long was slurping and slopping the whole way. J then skied down to me and we discussed downclimbing back out or continuing. He opted to do a ski cut to skier's right to the next safe zone. From that point on the pack was much deeper (i.e. not rotten to the core) and more consolidated.

Machingly fun and relieving after that

J displaying his schamooooove tele style




and continuing with Moosehorn lake far below




J continuing on down and down and down




and finally running out the last steep rollover at the bottom




it was late afternoon by this point and I wanted to do a few sled laps on Murdock Peak, but decided to wait till the next morning (Monday).

We were treated to this view of Notch Mountain and the 2 peaks around it (can't remember their names right now) on the way out.




The next morning at 5 am we were awakened by the thunder and lightning. It cleared briefly at around 9 and we started gearing up, but just as we were about to set out the next wave came in. We waited till 11 and it never let up, so we bailed back to SLC.

Kinda bummed we only got 1 peak, but Bald was sick!!
My fuel is fired more than ever now.
Wanna get back up there again this year, get GBNP and Tioga.
Then maybe, just maybe start climbing in July.

[skifishbum]

Hell yeah. Killer TR the scale of pics is grand. Good to see "Dad" gettin out for some sweet corn turns. Cool that Karhu & his wife both spancer him.
Your sleds or rentals?
Moosehorn lakes pics are awsome.

[raddam]

nice work buddy
looks like a nice day in Zion-land
way to make it happen

[splat]

Nice TR, X.

That's what I like about you - you're so humble you never post pics of yourself -

>ON YOUR BROS< BEEYATCH.

You know I'd like to see one. One of these days.

[Squirrel99]

Booyeah!

X, some nice stuff. And those boulders next to snow (and the rock debris) that stuff isn't small. I've climbed around there in the summer time and that stuff makes the undercarriage of Gadzoom look like pebbles

Noticed on your point of the wet slab looked pretty close to the edge of the slope where the rocks had seen some melt. Been seeing a lot of the same in the cascades with stuff starting to move much easier during the melt cycles anywhere near, below, or above rock bands as the snow looses its bond.

good work with the highway manuerving too!

[grizzle6]

Great TR X. Good to see your still killin' it.

[CS]

Dig it.

Nicely done X-man.

Best thing you ever did was get a digi-cam.

[Trackhead]

Nice Xover.

And no, I wouldn't have made a 100 jump turns. Just one. Cause I skied that line in November when it had snow.

And here is another shot of Reids South Face. And your line on Bald Peak in November this year.

I am going to ski Reids next year.

By the way, nice neon colors on those sleds.

[iskibc]

Those lines in those pics make we wanna make a trip down there soon. Sweetness.

[powstash]

Best thing you ever did was get a digi-cam.

WERD!

Now you need to actually host your images somewhere so you can get rid of that silly biglines logo dorking up the photos.

[Xover]

sfb, sleds courtesy of J's uncle.

Speelat-a-tat-a-tat, had bros rigged and ready for Murdock and your wanted pic, but weather did not cooperate for it - will get 1 or more before year is out.

Sq99, ditto on the rocks brutha.

'Stash, if someone would hazook me up with rites to said site you wouldn't have to look at the friggin' logo bizatch.

[Woodsy]

nice work gentlemen.
nice work

[SkiingBear]

Nice work, I was wondering if anyone was up getting some of that. I was up hiking (or walking the road in this case) in the Uintas this weekend and spied this:

Anyone know how to get to this? The photo was taken from the road, about 2 miles down from where the road crosses the Provo River (or, 2 miles down from where the bridge is out). I'm hoping that shot right through the middle is normally skiable. Probably lots of other stuff up there to play on too, maybe a trip next season?

[stump832]

Great report, X. Looks like it was a solid little trip, despite mother nature's lack of cooperation on the tail-end.

[bcrider]

Great lookin' mtns and TR xover!

...looking forward to your GBNP and eastside TRs too.

[powstash]

Nice work, I was wondering if anyone was up getting some of that. I was up hiking (or walking the road in this case) in the Uintas this weekend and spied this:

Anyone know how to get to this? The photo was taken from the road, about 2 miles down from where the road crosses the Provo River (or, 2 miles down from where the bridge is out). I'm hoping that shot right through the middle is normally skiable. Probably lots of other stuff up there to play on too, maybe a trip next season?

Oh yea, we're gonna have a goooooooooood time next winter after I finish my house in Kamas. Get your dawn patrol game face ready.

[A-wreck]

I normally don't post in trip reports because I don't have shit to say because I live in MI but, I think I was sledding in that area this year. I'm pretty sure I was on/around mirror lake. I love it up there. I hope I never buy another lift ticket in Utah and I just go sledding in the uintas.

Edit fer: Just read powstash's post and I think I started out near kamas. Or maybe I just remember seeing a sign for it. What are the names of some other towns that are near where people drop their sleds?

[zion zig zag]

Nice TR X!

Edit fer: Just read powstash's post and I think I started out near kamas. Or maybe I just remember seeing a sign for it. What are the names of some other towns that are near where people drop their sleds?

If you went to mirror lake you either started on the evanston, wy. side at bear river service, or you started on the kamas side near soapstone basin. And I guess there is a small chance you started at thousand lakes ranch and went through the gold hill area.

[skiguide]

All was true except 1 little piece of info not provided that a front end loader would be parked sideways across MLH right behind the barricades. Sorry I don't have a pic of it, at the time of the situation I was thinking more along the lines of we're screwed than of taking a pic of the situation at hand. Some skillful driving, good spotting and a few brances scraped and we were on our way with literally 2" to spare each side of the sno mo trailier.

yea, that kind of sucked when we got to that point too, i did notice that we could have driven around the side too. kudos for doing it with the sleds in tow
so we just parked @ murdock & walked up the closed road with the dog until we got to bridge.

surprised we didn't actually see you guys - I think we were there between 4 & 6 saturday - so maybe you were there later?

flyk/A-wreck - thousand PEAKS ranch? down the smith & morehouse / weber canyon road in Oakley?

[Xover]

.. update for newly received shots

Xover "clawing" (Life-link's version of the Whippet) up the last few feet to the summit of Bald




Xover with Reid's Peak in the background. Also visible is it's skiable South face if caught earlier in the year




Hayden Peak (Powstash beta )




Mt. Agassiz (more Powstash beta)




Xover out on an airy flat rock on Bald Mtn. summit




the Summit Chute entrance. plenty narrow




down in it just before it opens up. plenty steep and rocky to taste the "spice"




and finally maching out the middle half



all pics from Jwest's piece of crap digi cam

[splat]

Nice, X.

[powderwhore]

Nice bandana Hippy!