Utah hadn’t received any new snow in 6 weeks, but I’d been having a surprisingly fun time skiing with good friends, finding secret north-facing powder stashes, and enjoying some pretty stellar pre/post work laps. Still, it felt wrong to be in the Wasatch during such stable conditions and not go for something big. Alec had grown tired of my constant pestering about going for this line, so he graciously let me use his car to go solo it on a Thursday morning probably just to shut me up.
I left the city somewhere around 4am and arrived to an empty trailhead. Temperatures were in the low teens, and as a cascadian I couldn’t comprehend the night’s clear skies. I started cold and stayed cold as I moved quickly up the bear canyon trail to warm up. The avalanche forecast was green, with the only avalanche problem for the day as “General Caution”, which simultaneously gave me confidence in my line and fear for the quality of skiing.
The sun rose just as I got my first views of the surrounding American Fork canyon and soon the north peak of Mt. Timpanogos came into view. The Cold Fusion couloir makes up most of the north face of the peak, and I hoped that it’s north aspect would allow it to hang onto some decent snow.
What I learned once I began the 3000ft bootpack up the 40° couloir confirmed my fears. While its north aspect had kept an icy crust from forming, the strong winds as a result of Timpanogos’ prominent location had thrown most of the snow someplace else – my guess being the city I could see below.
The couloir weaved past some cliffs, through some rocky treed sections, and eventually fizzled out 200-300ft below the false summit. Winds began to pick up and blow heavily on my exposed spot. I scrambled up a loose gravelly slope to get a look at the section ahead and saw that it was patchy, non-continuous snow from here, so I took a photo and downclimbed back to my skis.
The upper section of skiing was firm, steep, and rocky, followed by a section of firm and rocky skiing, finishing with a remainder of just firm skiing. While I can’t say anything too positive about the skiing, the day was an exceptionally fun solo outing, with a bit of spice in the rocky spots and a grand feeling of being very alone in big and indifferent mountains. I ran into a party of two starting up as I exited the couloir, gave them what beta and stoke I could, and pushed my way down the road, enjoying the sunshine and views of the Wasatch. The ski down to the trailhead was fast and harrowing, but I was back at Alec’s just in time for him to get off work.