Winter 2024/25 Recap

It has been a while since I have written on here, and it is great to be back. It is currently mid-April here in the Wasatch and I have just returned from a short trip to Alaska. The temps have been warm and it is safe to say we have settled into a Spring Diurnal snowpack (for the time being). In a week, I head to Washington where I will spend the first half of my summer working and skiing. Before my gaze shifts to Rainier and the North Cascades, I figured I would write up a short post about some of the skiing and climbing I was fortunate to get into this past winter. 

Following a very short trip to South America, I arrived back in SLC in mid January. Shortly after my arrival, I found my self standing on top of Storm Mountain with my buddy Dan Christ. Dan and I first met on an Alpine Guide Course in the Spring of 2023, and have been crossing paths a few times a year ever since. Last winter, Dan moved from Estes Park to the Salt Lake Valley and has been getting AFTER IT here in the Wasatch.

With the alpine boarded up and variable from strong wind and a lingering PWL problem from early season snow, we hoped to target the mid elevation bands where the rain had soaked up and rounded those sharp grains. I had thrown out the idea of Storm Mountain (one of my favorite mountains in the Wasatch) and Dan was psyched to make it happen.

NE Shoulder, Airplane Peak. Photo by Connor Lacy

Spindrift Couloir

The last time I had skied the Spindrift Couloir was by myself in January of 2021. It was a formative experience and left a lasting impression on me and my perspective on how I wanted to move in the mountains. Minimal impact, a small rap kit, one 70m rope and a pair of headphones. I didn't care to tell anyone and could help smiling the whole walk down SR-190 back to my car at the Ferguson Trailhead. It was awesome.

Now, I wondered how my perspective might have changed on the line. Was it going to be as good as I remembered it? 

The walk up Ferguson Canyon went quickly and Dan and I enjoyed the long shadows of the Central Wasatch along the valley floor. The snow was cold and we moved well up to the true summit of Storm. We enjoyed the windless summit, ate snacks, played music and harnessed up. We kept our skis on our packs and traversed back along the summit ridge to the gnarled, old growth that marks the entrance to the Spindrift. 

The snow was soft and we did 2x 60m rappels on the upper headwall and two 30m rappels on the lower ice steps. The snow was supportable and creamy in the upper panels which turned to edgable chalk in the lower couloir. The skiing was high quality and it felt as though this time the Spindrift was a Wasatch final exam in a way. Once a intimidating and foreboding line, the Spindrift now felt like a comfortable and mellow day out. Although steep and exposed, Dan and I felt right at home and quickly meshed and leap frogged our way down one of the coolest faces in the Central Core. 

Hop turning through the choke of the Spindrift Couloir

The exit went smooth and we were quickly picked up and dropped back off at our car. It was certainly and incredible start to the steep skiing season!

Guiding work picked up and we settled into a unseasonably complex snowpack through January and February. It seemed as though we were plagued with large Maritime weather events in between fairly long periods of high pressure. It wasn't until mid March, when the snowpack began to truly settle out and steep, complex descents were back on the table. 

Stairs Gulch

It is hard to emphasize how impactful good ski partners are on your ability to do cool shit in the mountains. This year, I feel as though I've struck gold. In addition to Dan Christ, I have been skiing quite a bit with splitboard crusher CJ Heaney. CJ has really lept onto the scene as an extremely talented splitboarder and alpine climber here in the Wasatch. He recently joined the UMA Guide Team and I have been extremely fortunate to both ski, climb and work with him this winter. After hearing about good conditions in Stairs Gulch the day prior; Dan, CJ and myself headed up Broads Fork for a quick surgical, pre-brunch strike mission. 

Dan and I on top of Stairs Gulch

We arrived at the top of Bonkers in just over 3 hours and enjoyed the late morning sun before dropping into the dark side. Stairs has been in the back of my head for a while now and I felt so fortunate to be up there with those guys. The snow was cold, dense and rippable! All three of us leapfrogged through the snow covered, quartz slabs with ease and were quickly at the choke. 

The blind icy roll seemed tricky and we all took a second to survey the terrain. With word of a ropeless descent that went down yesterday, we figured we'd be able to do the same. As the token skier, I went to check it out and found a perfect ribbon of snow that traced along a bench between two icy bulges. It went smooth with a single ice axe and I was quickly throughout it. Dan followed suit on his toe side edge (goofy) and CJ decided he'd waited long enough and decided to wall ride to lower 8ft ice bulge (like a boss I might add). We simuled skied out of the drainage and soon enough we were back at the road. Just over 4 hours since we left the cars. We hitched a ride back up the S-Curves and were down at the Hub and Spoke diner by 1pm. What a morning!

Skookum Ramp

One of the last big days spent here in the Wasatch was back on Storm Mountain. This time by myself. I had recognized that this might be one of the last ski days on Storm before a prolonged and significant warmup and called out from my shift at The Gear Room (sorry Phil!). I arrived at the trailhead by 7:30am and at a casual pace made my way back up to the shoulder of Storm Mountain by 11:30am and stood on top right around midday. 

It was warm with low winds and clear skies. Storm Mountain is one of my favorite peaks in the Wasatch and it is always such a treat to have clear views of the valley and my house from the 9,000' summit perch. Especially with skis on my feet. 

I had a few different ideas of what I wanted to ski but ultimately settled on the Skookum ramp. A ski line first put down three years ago by a couple of friends Sam Hoffman and Zack Little on the Northwest Face. With minimal info, a 60m rope and a forgotten harness, I knew this line would be a real "treat."

I ripped skins, ate a bite of food and began my descent off of the summit. The snow was perfectly soft and supportable. The skiing was exposed and engaging. Although from the valley the "ramp" seems to require quite a bit of traversing, I found the skiing to be predominately fall line and superb. The western shoulder of the floating ramps I began to connect housed a thin wind skin that I repetitively flushed with a right turn on the rounded shoulder. The snow flushed off of the steep cliff to my left and added to the atmosphere of skiing this complex, Wasatch face. 

   High on the Skookum Ramp 

Traverse a thin ribbon of snow into the next hanging ramp. Cut the wind skin with a right turn. Let it flush. Ski slightly off fall line, in steep terrain 45 degree terrain. Repeat.

The crux of the line came when I was forced to traverse along a thin ribbon of steep snow with an icy bed surface from the previous days of warm weather. I took my time along with a few deep breaths, grabbed a few handfuls of bushes for support and inched my way onto the final ramp and down to the start of the rappels. It would have been a shitty place to fall. 

Following this cruxy traverse, I began shifting aspects to the west and encountered avy debris lodged in the trees above the first rappel. A quick link with blue cord was wrapped around a tree which led me down to some faded red tat slung around a shallow horn. 

It might be wise to mention since I had forgotten a harness, I had concocted a make shift harness out of 6mm cord and a rappel tether. The makeshift harness was uncomfortable but fine for the lower angle terrain that I was moving quickly through. That was until I came upon a less than ideal anchor and decided to beef up the station. I grabbed the green cord that was acting as a leg loop of my harness and equalized two stoppers behind a small flake. The pick of my ice axe helped fuse the two stoppers and I felt much better about my improved anchor. The problem was that now I only had one leg loop left. Rappelling over the steep quartzite with skis on my feet and one leg loop was pretty shitty and after one final rappel where I slung the rope around a bunch of slide alder, I told myself that I never needed to do that again. 

By the time I finished my rappels, it had gotten warm and I knew I wanted to get out of the Generator slide path before things unglued. The exit skiing was phenomenal and the bushwacking dense. I arrived on the side of the road at around 2:30pm and was quickly picked up by a coworker Winslow Passey. It was great to chat for a second and I was extremely grateful for the ride! 

Staring down the NW Couloir of the Pfeifferhorn

All in all it was a superb day and I was thankful I lunged at the opportunity to ski this rig as I had been staring at it constantly from the valley for quite a while. All in all a great Wasatch season and now onto Washington and Mount Rainier!

Liberty Ridge Ski attempt and Plan C in the Sunset Ampitheatre

With a few different ski descent off the summit of Mount Rainier, I was ready to go big! Following the South Tahoma Headwall, Sam Hoffman and I skied the Fuhrer Finger in two days and Calvin Jiricko and I skied the Nisqually Chute in a complete whiteout. I was ready to head to the northwest side of the mountain. One that see's even less visitors than the true western aspect I had been visiting with frequency.

Charlie Harrison and I planned to team up and attempt a top down, onsite style descent of Liberty Ridge. It was audacious, exciting and a bit nerve-racking. We rolled up the snowfield late in the afternoon in early May. We had a full kit with us. Two 30m RAD Lines, a few ice screws, crampons and our personal glacier racks. With some other guides in the Butler shelter, we opted to sleep in the empty client shelter and use the provided moldy sleeping bags and pads that are left up there each season. 

We awoke to clear skies and made coffee in the butler shelter, psyched for the day ahead. Cranking up through Cathedral Gap and through the Ingraham Direct route, we felt strong. We tagged the top of Columbia Crest at 11:30am, having left just three and a half hours earlier. My feet were feeling jacked up and I rested with my bare feet in the windless, sunny weather before putting my skis back on and over to Liberty Cap. The skiing was phenominal. Almost too good? At the saddle we put skins back on and skinned as far as we could up Liberty Cap. A quick bootpack following our skin put us on top of Liberty Cap right around 12 o'clock midday. 

Looking down into the amphitheater of rime mushrooms

The terrain off of Liberty Cap rolled slowly into the abyss and Charlie and I leap frogged our way down the ever steepening terrain. The skiing was magical. Boot top powder with good, firm edgable snow below. "Wow" I thought to myself. This is going to be incredible!

Just two days ago we had stashed a car in Sunrise for our exit and we got great views of the ridge from Enumclaw. We had been able to get some recon photos and see what conditions were like. Now we were up here and the terrain below was rugged and committing. We continued our descent until we hit the obvious bergschrund. 

"What do you think dude?" I said to Charlie. We could hardly see 20ft below us and we were about to rappel into the void. "I think we could get a thread there," Charlie pointed to a panel of ice. "Yeah, sounds great. But do you think our ropes will reach?" We had about 200ft total of rope, that tied together allowed for 100ft rappels. The only thing we could see was the Carbon Glacier 7000ft below us. "Shit," I thought. I begun to get a weird gut feeling about this...

After some continued discussion, I expressed my concern to Charlie. "We could go for it, but we're fucked if we have a bunch of hanging rappel stations." It would be doable, but we'd be fully committing to the descent. "Yeah, I hear ya dude" Charlie replied. "I'm okay with anything." The universal, non committing way of agreeing to bail. Alright then. Back up.

We transition to bootpack back up to Liberty Cap and we began to breath hard, having now been at 14,000ft for over four hours now. We finally made it back up and discussed our options. We could either reverse our track back up and over the southside, or we could check out our options on the western side of the mountain. We went for the latter.

We transitioned our skis and headed downhill. Our two options were the Mowich Headwall/Sunset Ridge or the Sunset Amphitheater Couloir. Both of which got skied very little. That being said, we both knew some friends had skied the Sunset Ridge a week prior. We skied to the roll which signified the start of the Mowich Headwall. To ski either Sunset Ridge or the Mowich we were going to have to commit to this steep, convex roll. 

I began to commit and made a few turns as Charlie watched. Two feet of powder on top of textured blue ice. As I made a few initial turns, the unconsolidated, new snow fractured under my feet and shed down the steep face below. "Shit dude, this is a no go too." 

I side stepped up and surveyed our options. "Well I guess there's one last option," Charlie sighed. "Yep, let's go check it out I guess." We put our skins back on our skis and skinned up the wind swept ridge to the top of the Sunset Amphitheater.

Sunset Amphitheater from the bottom of the couloir

It was now almost 2pm and we were pretty smoked. Turns out the last six hours above 14,00ft was pretty tiring. After about 30 minutes of skinning we reached a steep couloir that looked like it fed into the Sunset Amphitheater. We both agreed this was our best option and began to transition. I let Charlie drop first and watched from the ridge as he descended into the gut of the chute. Linking turns, side stepping down patches of blue ice and downhill kick turning, he made it to a protected spot on top of a rib of snow. I followed the 30m pitch of skiing and we regrouped above a skinnier, icy section where the terrain narrowed. 

We both agreed to pull the rope out and placed a deadman picket in the newly turned slushy, isothermic snow. The anchor was "good enough" and I began to lower Charlie down the icy runnel. We had tied both of our ropes together since we didn't know how long the rappel was and after Charlie was lowered 30m, I did a quick and dirty knot pass and continued to lower him. Soon he was back on the snow and I set up to rappel. Knowing we needed more than 30m of rope to rappel, I set up a reepshnur and rappeled on a single strand. Gingerly weighting the anchor and down climbing when it was possible I made my way down the 34m rappel. When I was close to the bottom, I took some cord and quad length sling and extended my pull line. The rope was still a bit short, and I went off rappel with the pull strand in my hand and jumped into the soft snow 3ft below. 

Skiing after the 35m rappel

We pulled the rope and stashed it away in our packs. Hopefully it would be the last time we would need it today. I skied first and traversed out skiers right. The lower couloir was steep! The snow was streaked and stained from the volcanic rock dust from the large cliffs above. I committed to the slope and began to find a rhythm as I linked hop turns. Charlie followed and leap frogged me as I watched from an adjacent safe spot on the shoulder. We yipped and hollered, excited to be through the major difficulties and headed downhill. Rocks intermittently rolled past and we hollered to each other when they got close. Often times we would be skiing in parallel to falling rock in the couloir. We moved quick and efficiently, knowing extended time in this loaded gun barrel could be quite dangerous. 

We regrouped at the bottom of the couloir and blindly aired over the bergschrund and arced GS turns down the apron. We were PSYCHED. As we skied towards Saint Andrews Rock we passed some of the largest boulders I have ever seen. One had a skid runnel that had to have been five feet deep. We traversed around the skiers right side of Saint Andrews and continued skiing adjacent to the Lower Tahoma Glacier. The skiing was steep, varied and the snow was perfect corn. 

Shwacking out to the West Side Road

The low angle glacier exit

By the time we hit the treeline, we had skied 7,000ft of varied, complex and just plain fun skiing. We hit the West Side Road by 7:30pm and met our good friend George at the gate just as dusk swept over Mount Rainier National Park. We wrapped up our day reminiscing in the Trailhead Bar. All in all an unforgettable day in the park. 

South Tahoma Headwall

For the second year in a row, I headed out to Washington to work for RMI Expeditions for the summer. The work has been great and the springtime conditions up here can be hard to beat. With the first few weeks of May off from work, I focused my attention on some personal skiing on Mount Rainier. 

Headed up the snowfield

The first mission began right when I arrived in Ashford. Henry Coppolillo had reached out and was hoping to ski for his birthday on May 3rd. Arriving late on the 2nd of May, I quickly unpacked my kit, repacked and tried to get some sleep prior to my 2:30am pickup from Henry and Ben Ammon another guide at RMI. Our plan was to something on the Southwest side of Rainier with the plan of skiing back down to the car from Paradise. But when Henry and Ben picked me up in the morning that had other ideas. They were keen on checking out the South Tahoma Headwall on the west side of Mount Rainier. I was enthusiastically on board and we quickly began up the Muir Snowfield. 

We made great time up the snowfield and soon we were booting up past the Beehive and to Gibraltar Ledges. We kept the rope tucked away and continued up the ledges and into the upper part of the couloir. Here we rested and refueled. 

On top of the ledges

I was feeling particularly worked having driven out to Washington the day before, and those guys smoked me on the upper part of the mountain. After our break we continued up through the tumultuous and broken upper Nisqually Glacier, having to pull the rope out and even "pitch" out a few small traverses. This is my favorite kind of mountain travel. One that involves all of the tricks and skills you have in your bag. 

Racking on the upper mountain

Once we moved through the broken, glaciated terrain, the terrain eased and we settled into mellow walking up to the top of Point Success. By this point I was extremely tired and those guys certainly had to wait for me to keep up. Thankfully the terrain was simple and a rope was not needed. After some much needed self-care time on top, we were ready to ski. 

The first rappel

Since it was Henry's birthday and Ben was preparing for his AMGA Ski Exam, by default I let those guys lead the charge to the notch of the South Tahoma Headwall. Ski's were donned just below the true summit of Point Success and we gingerly hop turned our way down diagonal ramps of pleasantly soft snow. We leap frogged and smiled as the terrain was pretty casual and it was comforting to finally have skis on our feet. We finally got to the first cliff band and opted to leave an old aluminum, deadman picket. 30m later, we had our skis back on and continued down slope.

With the warming temperatures, there was an increase in rockfall and we skied on the far skiers left down a tongue of snow and out of the couloirs gut. There were few places where we side slipped through ice filled chokes but overall the skiing was pleasant to say the least! Finally, we reached a point where we could either traverse skiers right into the gut or continue down the left tongue of snow. We chose to stay left.

We finally ran out of snow and to a downward sloping scree ramp and then about a 100ft cliff. We realized our mistake and considered booting back up and out but figured instead we would just rappel. Ben and Henry set up the rap as they had skied to the edge of the cliff first and I watched in a safe zone just above. 

Ben slung a shallow horn of rock that was smooth, strong and of good quality with some 7mm cord. With loose rock below, we figured the safest option was to lower the first two skiers so the ropes were hung slowly and not tossed. This ultimately would save Henry's life or at a minimum prevent him from serious injury. 

Henry clipped the end of the rope with an overhand on a bight to his harness with a locking carabiner. Ben threaded his belay plate with the rope and attached a "third hand" auto block to the brake strand and began to lower Henry down to the couloir below. As Henry was being lowered over the sloped edge, the load strand began to fully weight the anchor and after about 10m we all heard a "pop" and Ben yelled "oh fuck." The cord had slip off of the smooth, rounded rock horn and Ben had caught Henry off of his harness. "What the fuck was that?" Henry called up. Ben replied, "Henry are you in an okay spot? The anchor just blew." Henry was thankfully on a sloped ledge and was able to take some weight off of Ben. In the meantime, I was scrambling to find another anchor. The snow had turned quite soft, and the thin bit of ice underneath was not nearly enough for an anchor. A picket also resisted my anchor attempts in the shallow snow. 

Finally, I realized there was a massive boulder that we might be able to sling and transfer Henry's weight to. I slung the crumbly, volcanic boulder and just had enough cord to do so. I tied both ends together and clipped and flipped a locker to it. I then tied a releasable munter mule overhand (MMO) and Ben slowly lowered Henry's weight onto the new anchor. The cord from Henry's wieght cut into the crumbly, volcanic rock and Ben and I held our breath. Finally the load was fully transfered and although it was poor rock, it was unlikely the cord would cut through the full formation. I released the hitch and lowered Henry to the snow (or so I thought). 

Henry had reached a ledge and decided he was done with the ropes and down-climbed the 10ft section to the snow. Now it was my turn...

Ben and I tied both of our ropes together and fixed the rope with an extra 20ft of rope. "That should be enough," Ben said. I started to rappel and gingerly avoided the loose rock. After some faffing, I made it to the snow. Psyched to see Henry down below after our hour long mishap. Ben followed and we soon pulled our ropes with our skis back on our feet. 

Feeling pretty shaken up, we were all pretty psyched to get out of the gun barrel we were now in. We simul skied the lower portion of the South Tahoma Headwall and enjoyed steep, edge able skiing in an amazing setting. Whooping and hollering we all fist bumped once we were out of the serious, objectively hazardous terrain. We still had 3k' of skiing left to do.

The rolling terrain of the Tahoma glacier was a dream and we stopped a few times to recheck our gps maps and tracks that helped aid our descent. A few times we had to side step and soon we reached the treeline were the skiing got a whole lot more "techy." By this point the skiing was more like a controlled fall and very desperate. We were nearing "ski crash" territory. The fallen fir branches from the windy winter made our skis stick and nearly made me crash. 

After a break we strapped our skis to our packs and continued the descent on foot. We hit the West Side Road as the sun began to set and reached the cars just as dusk swept over the valley. We were tired, psyched and thankful. Thankful for a safe birthday ski day for Henry's 24th year on earth. That being said, we cut the margins pretty thin and the day could have ended a lot differently. Nothing more to do than go to the Elbe, smoke a cig and drink a beer. All while scheming the next trip to the top of Washington with skis.

Fall of 2022 in SLC

 This blog is aimed to share and collect stories and photos of trips and adventures that I am fortunate to experience. I am a 22 year old climber and guide splitting my time between SLC in the winters and Ashford, WA in the summer. I enjoy alpine rock and ice climbing and have been doing so for the past 4 years or so. I recognize that this is not my first attempt at a blog/space to record my adventures and it very well may crash and burn like all previous attempts. Regardless, it is worth a shot and we'll see how I do. There are many trips I could start this blog off with sharing, yet the most impactful from this past winter is not one trip but a season of ice and mixed climbing in the Salt Lake Valley. Enjoy. 

Winter showed up right on time here in Salt Lake by mid October. I had recently finished up my first season with RMI and spent the following weeks enjoying the desert down by Escalante, UT and the Wind River Range. Which may pop up as a post here following this first one. By October 25th, Margaret and I were skiing up at Alta and the Upper Cottonwoods were accumulating significant snowfall. So much so, that on the 10/27/23 Jaxson Rose, Larsen McCleary and I skied Suicide Chute off of Mt. Superior.

Wallowing up Suicide Chute on Oct. 27th

As the snowfall tapered off late October, the Intermountain West settled into a steady period of high pressure which allowed some more ephemeral mixed lines to come in. The first zone to receive significant ice was Hellgate Cliffs where some of the longer lines in the canyon are located. Hellgate has received plenty attention from some of the best SLC climbers over the years but there is very little information besides a few blog posts. 

 

        Bone Collector & Hellgate Slot Couloir Topo 

                                              

On Nov. 13th Marshall Allen, Myself and his brother Spencer went to check out a Nikki Smith/Chris Thomas line named Bone Collector (WI5 M5). After a quick ski to the base, we booted up the apron and found shelter along a band of limestone and racked up. The initial 50ft of climbing was loose and hard to protect. The brothers were getting hammered with snow as I worked my way up the left facing corner system, cleaning microwave sized snow mushrooms and slinging lackluster bushes as protection. Finally, I made it to the lone bolt on the route and traversed left onto the pillar of ice. 

After a few swings, I found myself hesitating to commit to the pillar. The hollow sounds of my tools swinging into the ice didn't inspire much confidence and soon after I found myself back at the bolt and being lowered back down to the belay. Today wasn't the day but I knew I would be back.

                                                        Climbing the moderate terrain of the Slot Couloir

Instead, the three of us shifted our attention climbers right to a gully that looked promising and offered moderate terrain with good ice. We traversed over into the groove and climbed about 300ft of perfect ice and neve with a few thin, unprotectable WI3 steps. Finally I got to the base of a steeper, chimney system full of loose chockstones. I built a belay, threw the rope down and brought the brothers up. At the belay, we restacked the rope, I tied in and continued up. 

The climbing was in my face and hard to protect. I tiptoed my way around the loose rock as best I could, but Marshall and Spencer were both directly in the line of fire at a marginal belay below. I was able to sling a tree root up high and was soon at a tree for the belay. I hollered down that it was pretty blue-collared climbing and they both agreed we could descend. I tied our two 70m ropes together and did a full length rappel back down to the moderate terrain below that we had simul soloed and picked Marshall and Spencer on my way. Once in more moderate terrain we continued to down climb a short WI2 step and soon we were back at the apron and on our way back down to the car. 

We agreed upon the name the Hellgate Slot Couloir and estimated it to be around (WI3 M4 R). Later talking with Alan Rousseau, he shared he had soloed the route back in the Mid 2010s. What a crusher. 

Four days later, I returned to the base of Bone Collector in the dark with my roommate Jaxon. I couldn't wait to get back on the route and had convinced him to climb before our 10am shift at the Gear Room. Now, we were back at the base listening to Biggie as we racked up at 2:45am. With the previous cleaning I had done four days ago, the initial climbing went quick and soon I was back at the lone bolt. I swung into a more supported pillar and fired upwards toward the belay. Jaxon followed and climbed through and joined me on the ledge. 

Jaxon topping out on the P1 Pillar

Pitch 2 consisted of more quality climbing on natural gear. I traversed right off the belay and manteled my way into another left facing corner system. Delicately stemming up the corner I found a bit of gear and swung a high tool. A few moves later and I was into a steep runnel system and continued up the belay. This pitch clocked in at around M4. I brought Jaxon up and soon our energy levels were rising. We had climbed through the majority of the technical terrain and had only 300ft of moderate terrain to the top. 

The next pitch went quickly and we simuled through the last pitch of WI3 M4 terrain to the top tree. The sun was rising and we knew we had to descend quickly. Four rappels and a bit of downclimbing, we were back at the apron quickly coiling ropes and gunning it back down to the car. We both agreed at work an hour later it was well worth the early wake up. 

Ice continued to build with good conditions throughout the valley. My sister came to town and we spent one of the days climbing the Great White Icicle which is always a blast. Highlights included climbing with crampons on the wrong feet and great turf sticks high on the 4th pitch. 

P4 of the Great White Icicle

Whoops...

Chris Gmitro, Co-Owner of the Gear Room and I had caught wind of good conditions down on the flanks of Mount Timpanogos and figured we ought to check it out. After a slippery ski up from Aspen Grove we approached the base of the East Face of Roberts Horn. Conditions were great with thick ice and and very little exposed rock. We started climbing at around 11am and topped out the summit ridge of Roberts Horn just after 3pm. We found difficulties up the WI4 and after the first 300m put the rope away and soloed short steps of ice to the true top of the route. We both agreed it was an excellent alpine adventure with a great mix of technical climbing and snow wallowing and a great prep route for future alpine climbing elsewhere. 

Chris on the third pitch

Soloing high up on the East Face

Topping out the face and onto the summit ridge

Provo Canyon began to come into shape and I began heading down there with some good friends to climb some of the reliable classics. Notable routes climbed include a thin Millers Thriller, the first 8 pitches of Stairway to Heaven and a day in Santaquin Canyon cragging with Margaret. 

Conditions in the Cottonwoods continued to improve and I climbed the thin Storm Mountain Falls (WI4) on two separate occasions. Once with Kevin and Chris Gmitro, brothers and the owners of the Gear Room (just the first pitch). I then returned with Phil Rodriguez one afternoon and we climbed the full route to the top of the Psychobabble wall. Following the first WI4 pitch we found moderate M2/3 terrain up to the base of the third pitch dagger. Phil took the rack and floated the pitch. It ended up being in the M3 WI4 range. 

One of the last, and biggest climbs of 2022 was in Little Cottonwood Canyon with Phil Rodriquez. Flipping through Nikki Smiths Beehive Ice book, there are few routes with little to no information besides a small blurb from the first ascensionists. A Day in Scotland is one of those routes. Originally climbed by two local legends Brian Smoot and Bill Robins in the 1980s, the route follows a giant chimney system that is visible from the road. I had alway been curious about the the climbing and figured we ought to go check it out. 

The short curtain to access the Day in Scotland Gully

From the road, we crossed Little Cottonwood Creek and began the arduous bushwhack through the woods and into the Triangle/A Day in Scotland gully system. The snow quickly firmed, and we had great front pointing conditions up to the base of the route. After simul soloing some of the moderate terrain of the first pitch, we roped up and I took us over a short curtain of ice and up some moderate runnels to an exciting cave belay. Phil took the second pitch, a steep in-your-face pitch that climbs vertically up from the belay and through a series of massive chockstones. The climbing was engaging and very three-dimensional. After shimmying through the chockstones, the climbing rejoins the large chimney system via a small runnel and soon we were kicking steps surrounded by a towering gully. 

P2 of A Day in Scotland

The gully stopped at near vertical step of mixed terrain where the climbing traversed into the next section of runnels. I took the rack and traversed left below a chockstone finding adequate pick torquing and even a thread around a chockstone that I discovered after chopping out the veneer of ice that was guarding it. The thread allowed me to side pull all the way left. I swung into the runnel and after a bit of faffing was finally established. I continued up to another cave belay and brought Phil up. 

P3 of A Day in Scotland

Ahead lay one more crux pitch and then moderate terrain to the top of the gully system and the end of the technical climbing. Phil started up the snow covered slabs and was able to get a few pieces of gear in. The large amounts of snow made the climbing slow and technical. His crampon tines skated along the smooth granite but soon enough he made his way over into the final runnel and stemmed up to easier terrain and good protection. Soon the rope came tight and I followed the pitch and up to Phil.

P4 and Crux Pitch of a Day in Scotland

We were elated and enjoyed a few moments soaking in what had just happened. A Day in Scotland was one of the best traditionally protected mixed routes I had ever climbed and the icing on the cake was that it was right in our backyard. we did four double length rappels back to the base and glissaded the now soft snow filled gully we had front pointed up this morning. Back at the car, we relived the climb as we cruised down LCC and back into the valley...