Day 42: Homicide Chute - We like it hard?

Yesterday I rallied back from Zion to try and get a ski in before work. I thought I'd be alone since I missed the Bart/Jason/Zack show on Box Elder but trusty Adam was up for a quickie. We had been premeditating Homicide Chute for a while and yesterday we were feeling impulsive. Viking Lars likes to say that we like it "hard," implying that our best adventures happen when the danger is low and the snow more on the hard side. Normally I'd say that tends to be the case because the skiing is more interesting and the terrain more adventurous, but yesterday was murderous. This was in part because I was on race skis (tried to throw in some intervals up pole line) and in part because frozen avy debris interspersed with breakable crust and a helping of ice makes for "interesting" skiing at best.

We warmed up with a run down from Little Superior, booted up Suicide, and then tried to avoid getting killed in Homicide. I lost an edge a couple time when the wimpy skis got bounced around and took a couple slides above some rocky chokes...not cool. It was the first time this year I really wished I had my whippets.

Cornices are getting big this year:


Adam smoothing out the ice:


Adam feeling confident with whippet in hand and his reliable Mt. Baker's:


The next few days should restore order to the Wasatch...it's nuking out there.

On a side note, Greg HIll is only a few thousand feet away from his goal of 2 million vertical for the calendar year. Congrats! After spending a few days in his back yard this month, it's easy to see how he's stayed motivated.

As for me...175,000 vertical for the season. I wonder if I could be half as manly as Greg?