Dry Brewed in the Wasatch

January 4, 2011


It’s hard to top a safe and joyous schuss of Superior, but lest that dissuade Ben and I from trying.  The third day of the New Year left Ben and I scouting one of the more esoteric lines in the Wasatch front.  We’d had two wonderful days of dry brewing under our belts, and as they say, “third tries the charm.”

Ben and I took off from the Sugarhouse and were to our parking lot in a mere 10 minutes.  We headed up the hiking trail, and very quickly realized we’d be blazing our own trails today.  Pucker bush, willows, cliffs, ice flows all abounded.  Just a few minutes into the day we’d taken Greg’s VTah and dubbed our little corner of the Wasatch UermonT.  Here some credible, albeit safe for public consumption, documentation of the approach.

tighter then a tick

And a chock stone in the skin track!  It’s a good thing Ben’s ski boots we’re in tour mode.  He even gave me the age’old whippet belay on the way up!

After a few hours of struggling, we finally reached the objective, and we’re glad to find out that hidden in this little corner of the local mountains was one of the biggest Coolers of dry brewed freshness we’d seen all weekend.

so icy cold

dry brewed

We got right down to work and put in a skin track ladder that would make even the cruelest Wasatch skin-track-setters proud.  Ben was so fast kick turning I couldn’t even get a picture of him doing so.  All that I could capture was his thorough assault of the dry brewed cooler on the way down.

dry brewed lovelyness

COOLERS ARE NICE

Ben even reeled off a shot of me sticking my hands into the cooler for another helping of dry brew.

brewing it nice n dry

This cooler was nearly bottomless, and went on and on for as many turns as we could take.

cooler city

Down and around through the first of many bootlegs.

bootleggin it

Ben arced one right out of the cooler and into the valley.

cooooool

The view from the bottom of this particular cooler did not disappoint.

nice view

From here on out we had a glorious time.  First came a 15 foot mandatory ice schuss or billy goat over 40 degree rock slabs.  We chose the later, and rightfully slow (so?!) for upon probing, the ice schuss landing contained many sharks teeth waiting to bite a weary skier.  The second obstacle came in the form of a small waterfall or tree, to rock, to tree schwack.  We again, chose the later.  Here’s a little documentation of just how thick the ski out became.

After a tiring, yet rewarding, escape from the mountains there was only one thing that could satiate the thirsts of 3 days of dry brewing — the driest brew of them all.

driest brew of them all

Thanks for reading Dry Brewed.  We here at the Rocky Mountain Bureau of FIS hope you enjoyed the read.  The first person who can figure out which mountain we skied down in Dry Brew Day 3 wins a free calendar and sticker set!   Hit us up on the comments.  If you don’t win, we’ve got calendars for sale that will make clients stare, friends jealous, and send significant others pining for their own copy (might as well just order two while you’re at it) .

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Read about the author:   Porter Haney
Enjoy this TR? Read another: TR: High (of) Five

Related Stuff:

  1. TR: Dry Brewed in the Wasatch
  2. More Snow in the Wasatch (!)

9 Comments

  1. Dwyer
    wrote on January 4th, 2011 at 7:33 pm  
    1

    Was the mountain from the third day Stowe?

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
    • Ben
      wrote on January 4th, 2011 at 8:34 pm  
      2

      duh!

      but which summit? (hint: it rhymes with lore-head)

    • Anonymous
      wrote on January 5th, 2011 at 8:32 am  
      3

      more bread?

  2. Adrian
    wrote on January 4th, 2011 at 10:54 pm  
    4

    That couloir for day 3 looks super rad, although that skin track is rather intimidating.
    It also looks like some solid schawcking about, very reminiscent of the east…

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  3. Tom
    wrote on January 5th, 2011 at 12:11 am  
    5

    Awesome pics and good riding. The final couloir would have been better (for riding down), faster and safer to bootpack, no?

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
    • Porter Haney
      wrote on January 5th, 2011 at 12:15 pm  
      6

      Hey Tom, I’m not convinced of that. With the depth of the snow it was certainly faster to put the skin track ladder in. Possible it would have been better skiing to only have a boot pack in. Also, possible that it would have been less impactful on the snow to boot pack, but I think that’s certainly up for discussion.

      Great pictures on pure light. Where are you based in Utah?

  4. K_C
    wrote on January 5th, 2011 at 1:21 pm  
    7

    That ‘stache almost didn’t fit in the cooler

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  5. christian
    wrote on January 5th, 2011 at 6:55 pm  
    8

    port, we shouldn’t be able to see your teeth when you smile. let that lip wig run wild.

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  6. rat-a-tat
    wrote on January 6th, 2011 at 5:51 pm  
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