Wolverine Cirque

So, a little catch up is in order. Needless to say I am still adding to my consecutive months of skiing in the Wasatch mountains. I am now at 29 months. Since my last post I have skied 16 times in the backcountry and 7 times at a resort. I have been able to ski the Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley for the first time too. I quite enjoyed my skiing experience at PCMR and DV. Craig had mentioned that he wanted to get out on a backcountry outing a couple of weeks back. We had initially planned to hike into the Coalpit headwall for some steep skiing. Harrison, our spiritual guide had hiked in there Sunday and the snow was too thin for any decent skiing. He guided Craig and I to the Wolverine Cirque just east of the Alta ski resort. We started hiking when the sun came up. At the Twin Lakes pass I noticed some coyote tracks in the snow. We followed the coyote tracks to the top of Patsey Marley where we transitioned. We skied along the rim of the cirque to the Huge Chute. The coyote tracks were right there on fresh windblown snow at the edge of the cornice. Harrison tested the cornice, found it stable and dropped into the chute. The Huge Chute is rated S4- and one star by Andrew McLean. It is wide chute with exposure on the skiers right about half way down. Harrison suggested that we practice our jump turns to practice for steeper and tighter chutes. The Huge Chute is a steady 40 degrees and about 500 feet of vertical to the apron. We each took our turn, skied out the apron to a transition spot and skinned back up to the top of Patsey Marley. On the second lap we saw a few more skiers. We transitioned and skied the rim again but this time to the Tips and Tails Chute. Along the way we stopped at the Bombay Chute for a look. Tips and Tails was a little more narrow and longer to the apron. It is rated S4 and one star. Another fun bit of steep skiing and a nice apron. We skinned back up to Patsey Marley and then skied the northeast face, through the trees and back to the car. A great morning of skiing given the poor snow conditions we currently have. Hopefully the storm that starts this Wednesday will bring lots of freshies.