Day 50:Finding the Whipple Couloir

Today was all about exploration. I met Bart at 7:30 and as usual, he jumped out of his car, ski boots on, ready to go. It was cold and I was completely unprepared. The batteries in my beacon were dead so I changed them. I took some time to get into my boots, skin up, pack my pack, put on a few extra layers, and lock the car. When I looked up, Bart was gone. Up the trail, I'm sure in an effort to warm up, he was ambling along, allowing me to catch up. I like this about these guys. Better be efficient or you're gonna get punished. I spent the next 5 minutes near full speed to reel him in. Luckily, I was on my race set up.

The plan for the day was to poke around Neff's and look for the "hardest to find" chute in the Wasatch. The views of Triangle Peak and Mount Olympus inspired talk of future adventures.



To keep the mystery and the sense of adventure going, I'll just say that somewhere up there we stumbled onto this:

So we snuck around and found the entrance:


Noah Howell found himself in the same place last year and has declared this the true Whipple. The one depicted in the Chuting Gallery is apparently a misprint and may be known as the Whiffle.

As the picture may portray, the chute was full of crusted up old avy debris. As is always the case, we didn't care and skied it anyway.

Bart getting crusty:

However, lacking a car shuttle or the will to battle scrub oak and the creek, we alternated skinning and booting back out. High on Wildcat Ridge, we found another tasty treat to end the morning:



So there it is. The Whipple was found again.