Winter finally returned to the Wasatch! With 13 inches falling over three days in the upper Cottonwood Canyons, myself, along with Mason Diedrich and Adam Symonds, skinned up Beartrap Fork in Big Cottonwood Canyon in hopes of fresh lines with no crowds. We found what we were looking for.
It felt so good to break trail through powder after not doing it for almost two months. Based on the tracks from Saturday, there weren’t many people traveling in Beartrap Fork. We had the whole place to ourselves and had no problem finding entire zones of untouched snow.
Temperatures were in the low-mid 20s, and winds were light except on the ridgelines where the wind chill made de-skinning a rather uncomfortable affair, especially since we were acclimated to spring weather in February. I was very surprised the wind wasn’t worse at high elevations considering how bad it was howling in the valley.
We skinned up to the east ridge between Beartrap and West Willow, then skied down a north-facing slope that wasn’t affected by the wind or sun. The turns were bouncy, creamy and so much fun – the best run I’ve had in months.
Skinning back to the Beartrap/Willow Fork Divide, we skied back down through the Beartrap Glades – a low-angle tree run of evergreens and aspens. It’s classic PST (perfectly spaced trees) and the snow was soft and deep in the upper slopes. But lower down in the aspens, conditions turned into dust on crust.
At this point, Adam left to join his lady at Brighton, so Mason and I skinned up the other side of Beartrap to the top of Short Swing in Mill D North Fork. We topped out on The Cone, then skied the east-facing headwall back into Beartrap. The east face was hammered by wind, which left it crusty. On slopes that angled more north, the snow was soft, but covered an old sun crust. Not the best skiing, but the crust underneath the powder was edgeable.
A great day in the Wasatch with much needed snow. We made a good choice with Beartrap as far as crowds. Never came across another party, but looking across BCC, from the summit of The Cone, and I could see hundreds of tracks off Cardiac Ridge in Cardiff Fork. It was completely farmed out.