First Day in Wolverine Cirque

Andy and I recently reconnected with an old friend named Ben Williams over the Christmas/New Year holiday. Ben recently purchased a split-board and has been dying to get out and shred some lines with us, so we thought it would be fun to take him up to Twin Lakes Pass for his first tour. The avalanche danger was mostly Level 1 (low), and it seemed like some of the easterly aspects were still sheltered from the wind damage. We had to wait for awhile because the clouds kept rolling in and sitting just above the lines that we wanted to ride, and it was practically pea-soup below 10,500 ft, but, as you can see from the above photo, above 10,500′ it was epic and clear.

We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful morning. The cloud cover kept the temperatures a little higher than usual, but not too warm to cause us to be sweating for than was due for our exertion. The climb was mostly on hard pack and an established skin-track until we hit a couple wind-blown areas just below the summit of Patsey Marley, and Andy broke trail for about 10 minutes until we reconnected with another established skin-track.

While we waited for the cloud to clear out, Andy and Ben practiced their telemark turns on their split-boards on a mellow little slope adjacent to the cirque. Neither of them are very good at skiing, and the snow snakes were out in abundance. It took about 45 minutes and our Costco Oatmeal Cookies were almost gone by the time the skies cleared enough for us to scope the lines we were eyeing.

All the aspects were fairly wind damaged except for the east facing slopes, and we weren’t worried about an avalanche nearly so much as terrible riding conditions and gnarly exposure. It’s hard to tell, a lot of the time, when you’re looking at a wind scoured piece, if there’s hidden surprises that look like wind spines, but are actually rocks being all incognito because how blown around the snowpack is.

Andy picked a real grown-up line with quite a lot of exposure, and in retrospect, he feels like it might have been a pretty poor decision. His line had a couple of “no-fall” zones, and, to my dismay, he actually took a fall, hitting a submerged rock and nearly ending his day in a real bad way.

After his fall, he had to boot pack out a sketchy steep drop-in with tons of hang-fire chilling out above him. It was a tense few minutes. I felt really helpless on the the other side of the cirque, getting the long camera angle, and although Ben was there to help him with his climb back up, I was still really sketched out and nervous that he was going to take another fall. He told me on the ride back down that the hike back out wasn’t as gnarly as the picture makes it looks, but I don’t know if I believe that. We spun a lap on a less exposed line, and the snow was really variable, but it was fun. He hammered out a new skin-track back to the summit of Patsey, and then headed back down to the car. All in a day’s work.

The following day, we met up with photographer Justin Olsen in the Southern Wasatch and went out for a quick sunrise tour. I brought my friend Jann Nielson along for the ride. It was her very first tour ever. Ultimately it was a successful two days in the Wasatch.