Dust on the corn

Steve and I went searching for corn and found excellent conditions on ENE facing 10000' elevation bliss in what we will call Little Left Fork of Staker Canyon Bowl. Milford Fire dust has covered the Plateau and collected just where transported snow would land in similar SW wind conditions creating a graphic example of wind transport (see pic with brown snow just beyond ridgelines). Our timing was excellent as temps dropped below freezing at noon yesterday and were in the teens overnight setting up snow into a layercake crust that was near 1o" thick. Light winds and clear skies greeted us and we made 3 laps on 40+ steeps with carvy corn. Made our escape out by noon and eyeballed some more similar terrain in Bennett Canyon to the south and in the next drainage beyond Bennett. When will it ever end? so much snow and so little time.

Google image is looking south into Bowl.

Wedding Ridge Ridge had shed a chunk of cornice in yesterdays heating, but lots remain on summit ridges across the Plateau.

Trailer (single wide) Court Canyon April 12, 2008

Wanting to beat the big heat-up, we picked on an old time favorite for post-lift season at Sundance. Trailer Court canyon is a steep NE facing bowl that eventually comes out on the Provo Canyon floor at the UDOT sheds. There used to be a trailer court at the bottom, hence the name. I thought we were a little early for great corn but found supportable crust on main ridgeline below cellular tower on our first run, so we decided to center punch the bowl. The due NE facing bowl was breakable dinner plate crust you could power through, but less than stellar conditions. Carey changed aspect a little more N and found more manageable conditions, but I had to wrench it out and stay in the fall line, aesthetics I guess. Further down we were able to cross into the next drainage and stay further north and conditions improved. Once we were in the bottom of the canyon we were on old debris and temps had been inverted producing very nice corn conditions for the remainder of the ski out. Debris from multiple paths had filled the bottom full and we were able to ski down 3/4 of the way and hike with a bit of bush-whacking for 20 minutes out the bottom. The old trail has overgrown quite a bit from what I remember, but I haven't skied this for at least a dozen years. When people were still living in the trailers that are long gone, the trail received a bit of traffic and was much better defined. This is worth doing again in the next week after a few more melt-freeze cycle. This was a great early morning tour and we were back to the car by 1000.