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Showing posts with the label SKI TOURING IN WHITE PINE GULCH

SKI TOURING IN WHITE PINE GULCH

White Pine Parking Lot, 7,700', one mile below Snowbird in Little Cottonwood Canyon, is THE trailhead for a mega-zone of backcountry ski terrain. White Pine itself is the eastern-most of the 5 skiable gulches that drain into LCC. The forested terrain down low is great for safe, peaceful, and scenic skinning. Skins come off at the top for blissful wiggling through the fluffy meadows. Mid-altitude evergreen glades offer wind-sheltered powder on the edges of the more open terrain. Before venturing onto more committing lines, avalanche danger must be carefully assessed. The guide performs a Compression Test in a snowpit and decides to open up this tasty poke underneath a rocky point called The Spire. If the snow and weather are both stable, the bigger lines on Red Baldy (in background between skiers) and Lake Peak become great options. Below, a skier reaps the reward of his labors with untracked powder on the broad Northwest Face of Red Baldy, 11,170'. Another set of tracks is jus