Wasatch Solo: Cutler Ridge, Ben Lomand Divide, Bailey Creek, December 28, 2019

The east face of Ben Lomand Peak (9,712 feet) towering above Cutler Basin.

Such a beautiful, spectacular, sunny, blue day up on Cutler Ridge today, but freezing! Such a welcome change from yesterday's gray day on Bountiful Ridge. My boots never dried completely from yesterday's tour so my feet were cold from the start. I couldn't feel them at all by the time we reached the Snotel site, which is 3 miles and 2,000 vertical feet from the trail head at North Fork Park (5,638 feet).

I can normally handle the cold, but today I shivered the whole day. My chill was further complicated due to my hydration hose freezing so I couldn't drink. This was the first time - ever - that my hydration hose has frozen. I've read about others abandoning hydration hoses due to freezing, but I've never had a problem in the 15 years since I switched from water bottles. The problem I found with bottles is they are buried deep in my pack and much harder to get to, resulting in dehydration just from the hassle of stopping to dig in your pack for a drink. For awhile I used a belt pouch to hold a quart-size water bottle (strapped to my pack belt) but it was not always inconspicuous while skiing. When I had a quart of water swinging from my belt I could definatly feel it while skiing and if it was a steep, technical hill is was a negative distraction. My ski partners all go with bottles in their packs but they don't seem to be heavy sweaters like I am. I drink constantly to avoid dehydration so I need easy access and a hose provides that easy access.

To avoid freezing, after I take a drink I blow the water back into the bladder, but from the start today I could not get any water to flow. I kept blowing into the hose and sucking, hoping I could break the ice-damn through pressure and hot-breath, but no luck. On frigid days I normally fill the bladder with hot water. It not only warms my back but it inhibits freezing. For this tour though, I packed everything the night before which meant the water had cooled to room temperature by the time I left this morning. When I got to Brett's house I put my pack in the back of Steve's truck for the drive from Ogden up to North Fork Park. The 45-minute drive from Ogden in the back of an unheated truck likely started the freezing of my water.

Although the temperatures were in the single digits I was still sweating heavily - like I always do when skinning up a mountain - and without properly hydrating I got dehydrated. Dehydration decreases your body's ability circulate blood flow (warmth) to the extremities, so I was freezing almost from the start. My feet were cold from the start and soon so were my fingers. I always wear light mitten liners but today they weren't up to the task. It's always a battle to minimize sweating to avoid getting wet which robs your body of warmth once you stop for food, or water or transitioning to ski, so over-dressing is big mistake while skinning. In an effort to warm my fingers while skinning, I dragged my poles from the wrist straps, keeping my fingers next to my body or in my armpits. The skin track on Cutler Ridge is fairly low-angle so I never really needed my poles to lean into the hill or for balance while skinning up steep grades, and that really saved my frozen fingers from freezing. Yes, I had heavy, warm mittens in my pack, but I didn't want to bugger them up with sweat. I was saving them for the descent. If I had two pairs of wet gloves then I'd really have a problem, so I left them in the pack and used the no-pole skinning technique.

I also carry extra base layers to change out of the wet layers at the top of ski runs. I strip to bare skin and put on dry layers and this almost always bring instant warmth but today it brought only a slight improvement. I was chilled and couldn't get warm, I hadn't felt my feet in over an hour so I was done after one ski run down Bailey Creek. Steve descended with me but Brett and Chris went back up to the divide for another run. I can't blame them as the snow was as good as it gets: ten inches of new, low density snow on top of a firm base, which is perfect for both ease of skinning and for the joy of skiing powder. So Steve and I went and sat in his truck while Brett and Chris skied. My toes never regained much feeling until I got home and then they burned and ached for several days afterward.

They seem fine now but I was probably in the early stages of frost-bite, so I have no reservations about bailing on the day.

Sunrise on the lower Cutler Ridge skinner in North Fork Park.

Chris, Brett and Steve, where the skinner leaves the groomed Nordic track and starts up the single track.

Steve and Chris just above the Snotel with Ben Lomand Peak emerging from the clouds.

Brett with Ben Lomand directly above. We skinned up to the divide just above and left of Brett's left shoulder, which is at the base of the Ben Lomand head-wall, about 1,000 vertical feet and 3/4 mile from the summit. From the divide we skinned south (left) 1/8 mile to that small gap in the trees on the ridge, transitioned to ski, then skied down Bailey Creek drainage which is the gladed face just to the right of the big Douglas fir on the left side of the photo.