White Pine Canyon Backcountry - 02.13.2011

[tmartenst]

Headed up for some 'slackcountry' today. Started at Snowbird and took the Gad 2 hike up to the White Pine ridge. Plan was to ski over by Red Baldy but we were flexible due to variable conditions.

The hike to the ridge went quickly. The hike up the ridge to the top of the Birthday Chutes was very icy and traversing out to the top of the Birthdays was tricky. The top 40 turns or so was not so great. Very hard packed and wind buffed. From there it turned nice in spots and hard in other spots that had sun damage. In the trees was fantastic. Seeing how bad the top section was, we decided against Red Baldy and instead, headed down through the trees and skinned back up to the West side of the canyon. We had another fantastic run through that tree section as well before we headed down.

I had forgotten my helmet at the ski patrol sign out at the top of Gad 2 so I had to go back to retrieve it. Riding my splitboard at the resort felt a little odd. Riding with no helmet and no hat while in White Pine was reminiscent of the 80s as well but I made it work.

Heading up from Snowbird

Ice


Crazy Wind Buff

Nice View. White Pine Canyon looking down to Little Cottonwood Canyon and Salt Lake City

The top of one of the Birthday Chutes. This was not a soft part of my run!

Heading up for another lap

[Dr. Nebz]

Very nice! Looks like that rain crust is still rearing its ugly head in spots.

[Sombeech]

Cool.

I've got a question; When you're planning on hiking up, how do you know not to take snowshoes? Just from other reports?

[tmartenst]

Three main reasons for never using them. 1. I have a splitboard instead 2. I hate snowshoes with a passion. 3. Most good ski runs are too steep for snowshoes. They made a product called Verts a few years ago that were made like snowshoes but better for steeps. They did not hinge.

I have used my snowshoes once in 4 years but not for skiing. I did take a pair in the backcountry from White Pine TH up to Pfiefferhorn and all the way down to Alpine once. That was not a smart way to conserve weight or energy.

[Sombeech]

Cool, thanks.

How long did it take for each hike up?

[abirken]

I'm curious! Why did you not skin up? Or do you have cramp-ons on? That hike looks brutal but hey whatever works. I recently borrowed a split board and skinned up our local mountain and rode down. SUCH a great time!

[Sombeech]

Also, why the splitboard? Is it just that much easier than packing the snowboard?

[tmartenst]

I'm curious! Why did you not skin up?

The hike from Gad 2 Patrol Shack to the Snowbird/White Pine ridge is always a bootpack. As is the hike up that same ridge. We rode down the Birthday Chutes to the meadow and then we did skin up the trees to our next run.

As per my previous comment about why using snowshoes isn't always the best choice, the same applies to the ridge. It is steep enough and in this case icy enough that skinning is not ideal. If we would have tried to skin up the ridge, we no doubt would have slid to serious injury.