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.

Before the New Year

I've been real lucky to ski a bunch of new lines so far this year. The snow base is deep and what seems to be above average for the year. Certainly much more than last year. Mineral may be my new favorite spot. Quite a bit of solace, minus the Powder Birds, but that's a-okay. Enough room for all to play in. Here is a quick edit of the past few weeks..



There are still many days left in the snow calender year. I'm really looking forward for the next few weeks. Another storm system is brewing up mid week this week. There's no such thing as too much snow.

Cold Days

The forecast called for lots of snow. That's what happened. And what came with such a big storm, meaning... measuring the the snowfall in feet, was wind. Penetrating wind. Wind drifts everywhere. Pockets of danger everywhere. It's almost hard to keep your head together when venturing out in such conditions. Which way do I go, am I going the easiest way, when is this wind going to die down, where is the steep stuff I want to avoid!! This talk may seem like something from mid-February, but no, it's still before Thanksgiving. The Wasatch is playing a little trick and pretending to be the middle of the winter. The ski run delivered but by the end of it my bones where cold to the core. I wanted no more. I wanted inside. A hot shower and a pb&j after this outing made me feel like I was in a four star resort. I need to continue going out in these adverse conditions to help me for bigger things, but today, I just felt shot.

Me at the end of the day. Frozen.


This day will keep me hungry for more when I get back. Leaving to NY for Thanksgiving tomorrow.

Washington

About a month ago my friend Andrea has surgery on her ankle. I decided with only having a short window of opportunity, to go see her. She gave me a quick and dirty run down of the Seattle & Ferndale/Bellingham area. There is a big difference coming from Utah. Everything is green in WA. After being on sensory overload of how lush everything was I took some pictures, and realized I missed this part of the outdoors.
Here are some pictures to show you what I mean.








By spring time, I hope to be back. This time to ski & hopefully, all contingent on the recovery of the ankle, with Andrea!

And a short video edit I made about the trip:

Times are a changing..

And just like turning on a light switch, winter is here. Last week the Wasatch received over 30 inches of snow! Amazing!! Early this month, I went out on some solo ski tours. It was exciting as I checked out a couple of new areas that I've never been to before. Going solo is quite enjoyable. No indecisiveness whether or not you want to go here or there. You just go.

Early November... North Face of Patsy Marly

The next day... Skied a bowl Near Sunset Peak (Backside of Alta)

The view down LCC. Superior is looking mean!


Today, I went with Shelby, my BC Ski partner. We went back to Patsy Marly's north facing shot to ski it...this time in powder.
Video of Shelby here:


So much fun. Hope the season continues like this!

Moab-->Wasatch-->Bed

I've been really fortunate to have some great mentors in the mountains. My buddy Zach just got back to the states from guiding over in Switzerland and we met down in Moab. Out of the five days, we climbed 4 of them. Either burning up in the heat on single pitch stuff off of Wallstreet or waiting for things to cool off for some longer things. The catch with that is you better bring your head lamp!!
Ancient Art goes up that corkscrew looking thing on the left!


The view out towards Castleton Valley. Still going up at this point. Getting dark!


Me at the base of the corkscrew part of the climb. You can see it in the background


We were always trying to find the window to climb. Heat, wind, storms all played a factor. We got to climb The Owl in Arches right before a huge storm cell hit!
This is a picture of The Owl, minutes after we got off it, with the storm coming right at us.


Parting shot at Arches NP


After that little get-a-way I headed back to SLC and Zach followed suite a couple days later. We did a lot of climbing in Little Cottonwood. We got to do a lot of classics. Crack in the Woods --> Hand Jive, Becky's Wall, Pentapitch (Sasquatch Variation), Satan's Corner (getting rained on!)
Here is Zach on Hand Jive.

Fall colors looking up LCC with the final pitch of Pentapitch in view. It's a small cryptic friction traverse to the thin crack that goes up!


After a bit of climbing, my shoulder started to act up. Its sore, so I'm taking a few days off as I do not want to aggravate it too much before winter comes. And winter is knocking at our doors with whispers of La Nina talk drifting about the internet forums. During this downtime I've been building a website! Check it out @ www.glacierview-alaska.com I've also been building a bed frame! Check THAT out! I can make my own bed!

Running

Running dominated my time during high school and college. I don't think a single coach truly appreciated my dedication, as I normally took winters off to go skiing. However, when I was running competitively I gave it my all. Fractions of a second mattered to me over a race that was 5 miles long. With that kind of mentality, you can see how one can become obsessed to an extent. It wasn't healthy. College summers consisted of working on a tree farm for 50 hours a week and then running 80 miles a week. All to put your body at a new level (speed) it's never seen before. After college.. well, after Junior year, I never can say I got back in the swing of things with running. I never raced again. Whats the point? I'd never be as fast as I once was nor will I become dedicated that much.

After this ski season I felt like my lungs and legs were in pretty decent shape. So I went for a run. I've continued running all throughout and I finally feel like I am a runner once again. It's great! I love it! I'm even starting to name some runs here in Salt Lake like I use to at Oneonta. See, at college we'd name some runs to do. For example,.. "oh, lets to red barn" or "hey, lets go run east to west" Just naming runs gives it some value in my eyes rather than the boring, lets go for 60 minutes.

So today, I ran "Bypass". This is a 4 mile loop. Starting at Snowbirds tram base, running through the bypass road...all the way up to the end of the LCC road and back down running right underneath Mt. Superior. It's a big circle. After .2 though, your saliva is incredibly thick, your head is pounding and you just want to give up. The run is not only at 9,000 feet, but it has a steady uphill to start! This is the second time I've done this loop. You need enough time to forget about how much the run hurts before going back to it.

I'm excited. Tomorrow I will be flying back to New York. Very old familiar run loops will come into mind. New Paltz Rail Trail, OCP (Orange county park) loop, and some runs up in Albany. It'll be great to judge and see how fit I am from where I once was, since the altitude here hurts your times slightly.

Last week in Indian Creek after a fantastic run.