Powder Day, Bountiful Peak, May 23, 2020

Like clockwork, there is always a powder day in late spring, but I was having doubts for 2020.

My ski season has been fraught with much stress and anxiety. The executives of my employer of the last 30 years, although hugely profitable and healthy (the company not the executives), decided that the company could squeeze a fraction more blood out of granite if my department was transferred to Houston, Texas. They offered me a job, but Texas holds nothing for me but for a paycheck. After doing my due-diligence, looking at real estate and the city, I said "no thanks." Luckily I found a new job in Salt Lake almost immediately, but at a significant pay cut. Less money was OK as long as I was near my grandkids and my mountains. Yes, I whine all the time about the crowded Wasatch Front, but its still light years ahead of Houston (talk about crowded!) for my weird outdoor hobbies. 

Incidentally, on our flight to Houston to check out houses, I asked a guy from Houston,  "what outdoor activities are available in the Houston area." His eyes 'bugged out,' he gave me a look of 'YOU ARE NUTS,' the look your wife gives you when you bring home another pair of new skis, then he said, "we don't go outside from May through September, but the rest of the year we play golf, shoot rabbits, play golf, go to Galveston, watch Houston Texans NFL Football." (What the hell is NFL Football? Is that even a sport??).

I walked away thinking, "don't fool yourself, Houston is a city that serves no purpose other than for money-grubbing, and for big-bubbas to eat massive quantities of BBQ, and nothing else." Sorry, I'm not going to grow old watching my grandkids on FaceTime playing in the mountains, or watching ski videos on my iPhone from my air-conditioned home while outside the  temperatures and humidity are in the upper 90's, and the landscape is dead-flat as far as the eye can see. No way.

The other thing, why would I move to a nasty city in Texas for a company that shits in my face after 30 years of dedicated service? All trust is blown. As you can tell, I am not a company man. I've never been OCD enough to succeed in anything, a big reason I am still working, but I know what's important and I don't give away the things I love to make another man rich.  

So, I'm not in Houston, but I'm trying to learn a new job. I worked for three weeks in that new job, with a new location, new people, new management, and it seemed life was beginning to right itself, then all hell broke loose: in mid-March they told us to go home, stay home, and work from home, all  due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It's pretty damn tough to learn a new job from home.  Almost from the season's start, skiing became an afterthought with all the complications of life this winter. When I did ski, I was blown away how my home hill was so tracked out. I couldn't believe how many new faces I was seeing up there. I couldn't believe how the skin track was now like a rock-hard sidewalks that you see in Grizzly Gulch or Mill-D North. I couldn't believe how huge groups would track out one hill in one run when, in year's past, I was alone all day and it would take that whole day to ski even a fraction of that terrain. It has been a different world on all fronts. I still skied, but the inner joy was gone. The spark was missing this year and I started wondering if maybe I should have gone to Houston, as least I knew that job and I could run on fumes.

But I get it. I understand why the backcountry is getting so crowded. When life is always competitive and the voices of authority are constantly telling us we are full of shit, even when we exhaust ourselves doing good, the escape to a snow-covered mountain is life-saving. We find peace, contentment, complete joy and yes, a deep spirituality found nowhere else, it is no wonder that so many of us seek after these things. A few hours of still and silence on a snow-covered mountain transform us from the dark, back into light. I needed that light more than ever this year, but it was fleeting. This week I found it. It came back to me when least expected. Yes, I'm still working from home in a job I do not know, but for five hours on Saturday, on a mountain in a white-out blizzard, I once again found God.  

The spring of 2020 was very dry, by mid April most folks had turned to trail running and cycling, but this week the Gods - Finally! - relented and blessed us a cold, wet storm. Before going to bed Friday night I stuck my head out the door and could feel the chill in the air - it felt like snow - so hoped that if I got up early there should be some skiable powder up high. I went to the garage and hot-waxed my BD Aspects, my go-to, spring-skiing ski, then loaded my pack and filled the water bladder. I even put the batteries back into my beacon, all for body recovery in case of my burial as I usually ski alone. During the night the snow-line dropped to about 4,500 feet with no accumulation, but above 6,000 feet it stuck. The problem was that much of the winter snowpack had melted at my usual ski haunts and six-inches of new snow does nothing to cover rocks and brush. Bountiful Ridge, for example, lies between 7,000-8,400 feet on a northwest (sunny) aspect and its winter snowpack was long gone (see my May 7, 23020 post to see the meager, 'hanging-on' snowpack).

Little Cottonwood Canyon is high elevation and holds snow long into summer, but I just do not like going there anymore. It's always an overloaded barn-yard of sheep at every trail-head. Instead, I drove up Farmington Canyon and headed for Bountiful Peak. Based upon last weeks ski day in Rice Bowl (see my May 17th post), which is about half mile from Bountiful Peak on the same ridge, I knew it still held deep, winter snow-pack in its NE bowls.

The drive up Farmington Canyon was wet below 6k feet, but soon snow-covered and slippery - and scary - the higher I drove. With about six inches of fresh snow on the road, I could feel the truck sliding on tight corners and I had flashes of thought of sliding off the the steep walled road. There was one set of tire tracks through the snow, on the right side of the road, presumably from a Francis Peak FAA employee driving home earlier that morning, so I tried to use those tires tracks for traction, even on the wrong side of the road, to maintain purchase. I made to the Bountiful Peak turnoff and was surprised to see the gate was open, but, due to the deep snow just above, I presumed a cabin owner had accidentally left it open. I parked there because I wasn't bold enough to drive any further, plus I was worried my truck would get locked in, so I booted from there. I hiked the road up to the Farmington Lakes, then switched to skis and skinned up to the north shoulder of Bountiful Peak. I knew from the previous week that the snow was mostly continuous beyond this point. 

Bountiful Peak was covered in a cloud-cap the whole time I was skiing, sometimes in a total white-out, but I could see sunshine on Farmington Flats 2,000 feet below and I held hope the cloud might break open for my skiing. 

I'm not sure why but when I'm in the mountains during a white-out blizzard, my thoughts become deeper (it's all relative for a shallow mind) and my worries fade away. I get a sense that there is something of greater importance than my daily worries that I don't feel anywhere else. It's a feeling of peace, that maybe I am OK in this world and that maybe my efforts at home are good. That my family and grandkids will be OK. That I shouldn't worry so much? A wintry-day in the mountains in late May was a gift from God.  

When in white-out while skinning up, at times I felt dizzy with no equilibrium. With little sense of the changing contours, I was staggering like a Houston-bar-crawl-drunk. The north shoulder of Bountiful Peak has few tree and I had little sense of elevation changes, but luckily, when I was ready to ski, the clouds miraculously lifted - just a bit - providing a grounding  for my inner gyroscope. Theres was about six inches of slightly heavy, 'January powder' on top of the old, dust-covered winter snowpack, so the skiing was quite excellent. I skied three runs, first, down the open slope just above the long corniced ridge of the north ridge of Bountiful Peak, then two runs down the steep couloir just off the snow shoulder of Bountiful Peak. The upper couloir really is steep, especially when considering my penchant for meadow skipping, it's around 45 degrees, and it was wind loaded, so I did a big ski cut at the top of the couloir on my first run. It sloughed, running about 50 feet, but there was no slab release. Conditions were mostly stable. The slough was big enough to trip me off my skis so I 'billy-goated' my turns down the fall line (lopsided righthand turns to stay out of the fall-line) to let the slough run by as I turned, until the angle lessened and no longer steep enough to slough, then it was just fun, brainless turns in stable powder.

A glorious day to end (?) my ski season.       

My Tacoma at the Bountiful Peak junction. The blue truck was running, some guy was trying to sleep in there. 

Five or six inches of new snow. On my exit, after the sun had done its work, reduced to about a fourth (see photo below). 

My booter tracks, looking back past the "group site"of the Bountiful Peak campground.  

Lower Farmington Lake, where I started skinning. Mud Peak, where I skied last week, is in the clouds on the far right. Today I head left at the lake to ski Bountiful Peak (not in photo). 

Looking back at my booter from the lower lake. 

Farmington Lake below my skin. track. It feels so good to be breaking trail again. 

Skin track above the Bountiful Peak road (across the middle of photo) with Farmington Lake (middle left). 

Corniced ridge-line off the north shoulder of Bountiful Peak.

View NE down the north ridge of Bountiful Peak. The Francis Peak road is seen on the slope leading leftward.

De-skinning for the first run, down Ballroom slope (next three photos) running NE off the corniced ridge on the north ridge of Bountiful Peak.

The Ballroom off the north ridge of Bountiufl Peak.

Run-out at the bottom of the Ballroom.

First run's ski tracks at the bottom of the Ballroom on the north side of Bountiful Peak.

2nd run,  down the North Couloir off Bountiful Peak.

Tracks down the North Couloir of Bountiful Peak (the rightward slot through the rocks).

Zoomed view, first run tracks down couloir.

Bountiful Peak. If you want steep and narrow, go ski that couloir off the top of Bountiful Peak (leftward slash through the rocks).

Skin track back up the Ballroom for run number three.

Winter is back.

I hate those Dynafit boots, but I'm too cheap to wear my new Atomics on a day when I might be scrambling over rocks. Those TLT6's draw blood every time I wear them.

Old and new, The old snow is totally dusted with Great Salt Lake mud from the hot, south winds we've had the last few weeks. 

View south towards Bountiful Peak, hidden in the fog.

Even when in fog I could see sunshine on Farmington Flats, 2,000 feet below.

Back for a second run down the North Couloir of Bountiful Peak, with my ski cut from my first run. 

First run ski tracks down the North Couloir of B-Peak.

Hard to see but these are my two sets of tracks down the North Couloir of B-Peak.

Corniced North Ridge of Bountiful Peak. 

Bountiful Peak emerging from the fog. This brush was completely buried in the winters snowpack just two weeks ago. 

Exit run back to Farmington Lakes.

The road was pure white when I booted up this several hours before.

And more than twice as much fresh snow before the sun did its work.

I have no idea what this is. 

Tacoma in snow and mud at the Bountiful Peak junction parking lot.

Dirty stream from the melting snow.

View west down Farmington Canyon and Antelope Island, during the drive out.