Ice in the Desert
Well, yesterday we woke up at 5am, stumbled around in the dark, threw our ski clothes on piled into our cars and headed up to the Geiser Basin trail head in the La Sals.
Sunrise over the La Sals
The objective, of making it to the top of our lines before noon.
The last push before the boot pack
The approach was long and the final boot pack up the couloir (later named Helen Keller) was steep, icey and really mad me wish I had an ice axe.
Alex and Weston get ready for the boot up Hellen Keller
But none the less, myself, Alex Paul, And Weston D. made it up to the top of our lines by 11am.
You can't tell but this couloir is about 50 + degrees
Weston skied Helen Keller, the tightest shoot of the three, at parts his skies barely fit through the narrow walls of the Couloir.
View from the top. If you look close you can see Arches
After hearing the icy turns echo through the basin there was talk of abandoning my line, but I decided to go for it. It was just lookers right of Helen Keller, a steep couloir that had a narrow choke about ski length wide. I dropped in and it was an ice sheet with lose rocks peppered on top.
Lookers left: Helen Keller. Right: My line
It was bullet proof, scratchy, slow survival skiing, but at the end I was stoked to have skied it anyway.
Alex Paul Finding the good snow
Alex took the good advice and hit a line that was getting a little more sun and his first few turns were delicious, however as he dropped down his line too became scratchy. All and all we decided that it was cool that we skied our lines, but the quality of snow and the energy and time it took to get into that zone was not worth repeating at this time.
The Summit through the lens of Alex
So we say bye bye to the La Sals. We will see you next winter!!!
Sunsetting on Moab
