Sunday, March 6, 2011

Lisa Falls

"At least once a year, the mountains deal me a healthy dose of humility. When I found myself repelling knee deep in a water fall while it filled my ski boots, I realized today was one of those days" - Shelby

The plan was hatched two days ago. Lisa Falls or Pfief...maybe South face of Superior? At any rate, Shelby (my ski buddy) wanted a big time adventure. Reading about Lisa Falls has always sparked my interest. It would be an enormous day. Sitting at work up at Brighton I was just contemplating if this would actually happen. Two co-workers were intrigued and wanted to come along as well. Joe (who always seems like he's up for a big adventure) and Corey (who's just looney tunes crazy sometimes) wanted in. Perfect!

The day started out leaving a car over in Little. We wanted to go via Broads Fork and not up Tanners. This added a little bit of mileage/vertical and time but that was alright with me. It would be less time with the skis on my back and booting up something. The idea of booting up a slide path never really excites me.

Heading up to the north side of Sunrise, gaining the saddle on the lookers right. We would gain the East Ridge of the East Twin from there.


On the ridge.. It was a windy one looking down Little Cottonwood Canyon.


The wind was stronger than what I thought it would be. Clouds were rolling in to and I just had an unsettling feeling about 400 ft from the summit. Thank goodness with such a large group, there was no complaining about me pulling the plug on the summit bid. So we did a variation of Lisa Falls, which who knows, could be even steeper than the original from the top!

Shelby skiing down. Right after this little bit, we join the original Lisa Falls run.


A pretty steep, no fall zone section


The rappels at the end. Shelby about to get wet. It was before and after these rappels that really drained me. Lots of tedious down climbing on slick wet granite rock was not reassuring.


Long approach, Steep skiing, narrow chutes, down climbing, anchor building, rappelling, post hole walking... this run had it all. And 3 of the 4 of us were late for work that night up at Brighton. Underestimated the exit greatly.. I am beat up from this type of outing but look forward to more like these.