Greeley Bowl - Ski/Hike

I talked my brother in law Dave in to an early morning hike. We met at the Little Cottonwood park and ride at 6am and drove up to Alta. We hike up toward the Gunsight chute but elected to hike to the top of the Greeley Bowl. There was much less snow on the snow field than last Tuesday. Once we got to the snow field we put on my pair of crampons. Dave had the right and I had the left foot. The single crampon provided sufficient grip to walk up the hill to the ridge. On the climb Dave found a silver whiskey flask with initials engraved in it. As we looked back down from the ridge Dave spotted a lone ski. Looking from the ridge to the west there was a wonderful view of Mount Superior through the trees. The snow in the morning sun and starting to soften but was still a bit stiff. We skied down to the lone ski. I strapped it to my backpack and we skied down a bit more. I can only guess that some skier crashed and lost his ski in the deep powder. It is a rental ski from a local shop. I'll turn it in and hope they reward me with some cool chotchkie. We transitioned for another lap up to the ridge. I dropped the lone ski before the hike up. This time up the bowl I spotted a coyote about a quarter mile away on the snow field. We looked at each other for a couple of minutes. Then he went his way and I went mine. On this run the snow was softer and allowed for better turns. We skied down to the lone ski where I strapped it to my pack. We tried to ski out through a little gully down to the creek. But with less snow it made it harder to pick our way around the brush and rocks. We ran out of snow before we got to the creek. I was worried that the snow bridge would be gone and we would have bushwhack up and over to the bridge that we crossed on the way in. Luckily it was still there and still thick enough to handle our crossing. It probably won't last for much longer though. Dave's computer said we had burned 1,600 calories. I'm ready for a cheeseburger.