Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the biggest shopping day of the year, is memorable for images of frenzied shoppers practically rioting in pre-dawn madness just to score some deals on stuff. Well, there’s another pre-dawn tradition on the day after Thanksgiving, and that’s backcountry touring into the Wasatch Mountains to burn off those turkey-day calories and get above the clawing, shoving, spending insanity unfolding in the valley below.
Our dawn start began at the White Pine trail head in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Myself, Mike D and J True had no real plan except to poke around in upper White Pine Canyon and ski something. The turns had been very good at Snowbird on north and west-facing slopes, with wind buffed snow providing fast and edgable carving. With that in mind, we headed up in the pre-dawn gloom just as morning alpenglow illuminated the highest peaks in light pink color.
The skin up White Pine is always long, but worth the effort as soon as one reaches the upper canyon where open bowls and the dramatic peaks of White Baldy, Red Baldy, and No Name Peak reveal themselves between the evergreens. We contoured on the east side of the canyon and made our way up to a rise where a view of Red Top Mountain showed plenty of snow to ski on, albeit wind-affected snow. So we traversed over to poke at it and come up with a plan. An old skin track, scoured by wind until it was above the surface like an abandoned rail line, gave us an ascent route directly up a wide chute called Long John Silver. Finding a combination of snow, punchy snow combined with what Mike describes as chalkboard snow, we began to switchback up the side of Red Top.
The skinning was pleasant and easy aside from the occasional failure of any supportable surface under a misplaced ski. Deep, sugary powder pocketed the slope making our legs sink up to the shins in some places. Our ascent rapidly put us far above White Pine Lake, and our perspective of the entire canyon changed. After several tours in the area, I knew the mountains and cirques well. But from this angle, everything, from the peaks to the contours of rolling gullies at canyon bottom looked different somehow.
At one point, the slope became too steep to continue on skis, so J clicked out and shouldered his planks, bootpacking straight up onto a slope ridden with loose scree and shallow, faceted snow. Mike and I followed, strapping skis to our packs then carefully picking our way up the rocks. This unexpected route was fun and thrilling, as any misstep could mean a tumble over stones and rock bands all the way down the the valley bottom. Trying not to look down, and focusing on foot placement, I scrambled to keep up with J, who, like the goat on his trucker hat, danced up the mountainside. His goal? The start of the chute, which was reached by traversing above then down-climbing to a place where we could put our skis back on, and sidestep down to the chute’s entrance.
One by one we skied in, hop turning into the steep. Nerves were tight as I made the moves, staying centered on my skis and not slipping out into a slide-for-life. I regretted not bringing my Whippet, but was soon out of the choke and into the apron where I could open up with wider turns between the fine line of soft snow in the sun, and windboard in the shade.
We leapfrogged each other down and took pictures along the way as we carved crescents far above the Salt Lake Valley on a bluebird day in the Wasatch. Black Friday was bright, and shopping for deals on televisions and computer tablets was the furthest things from our minds. For us, it was White Friday for the snow, and Blue Friday for the sky.
Instead of elbowing people at storefronts, we brushed away pine branches, and instead of clawing for the hottest toys, we clawed into snow on a sketchy ascent. The only insanity unfolding here, was the fact that we were the only ones there to appreciate it.