Timp Snowfield attempt

Zach somehow motivated me to try and slog up to the snowfield. Wind totally jacked the headwall. Wind slab on top of scary weak facets made travel in steep areas sketchy at best. We weren't moving too fast and i wanted to get back for the BYU/Utah game so we bailed midway up the headwall. Still nice to get out and observe pre-season conditions in that area. Definately not I place I will come back to for a while considering how weak the snow is.

Strawberry and LC

On the way to LC I had to take advantage of some thick morning fog on the berry. Too bad I didn't get up earlier cause I only caught the tail end of it as it burned off around 11. I think the thickest morning fog occurs just before the lake freezes. Just pulled out one fish near the dam casting from shore using a big gay al. Even though fish are so close to the bank when there is fog I am accepting that it's still more effective to be in a boat casting to shore.

Then to LC. Was quite suprised at how many people were there. 2 drift boats and a fleet of toons and tubes. About 10 people there in all. Didn't see anyone catch a thing and many were starting to leave when I arrived around noon. Water temp was 36.

Caught this nice Tiger Trout on a brown articulated leech and 7 sink. Was casting to shore on the east side and using medium speed retrieve. Maybe should have slowed it down more and used the clear camo cause not much happened after that. On the way in, after only fishing for an hour, I saw quite a larger tiger trout rolling around near the shore. Judging by the water temp and others/my own success I didn't feel inclined to keep trying.
So off to chicken creek east at the Berry. Alot of people there around 330 but again nobody catching anything including myself. A dry front passed through but it wasn't windy for some reason. Just calm and relatively warm. I jetted off to Renegade for the last hour of daylight to prove my theory that Renegade Point is one of the best spots on the lake. Sure enough I pulled a fish out on big gay al and clear camo before it got dark. Seems like there is just a huge concentration of fish off that point.

Thanksgiving quickie

Hit Little Dell for about an hour. Water temp was 46. Saw some pigs near the inlet but it was too clear and shallow to not spook them. Caught a decent cutt out deeper on a Big Gay Al fly and 7 sink.

Days Fork

The coverage is not nearly as good as it looks. Base averages about 2 feet on prime terrain. Exits are still crap.

Zach, Zach G, Cindi, and Tyler joined me up Days Fork. Well sort of. I had to ditch them shortly after starting so I could get to work before noon. Takes about 2 hours to go up from BCC. I climbed pretty quickly until I ran out of energy drink and bonked near the top.
Hit the line in the shade.

Zach's pic of me.

The Bird again

A fat crew for this morning. Frank, Rich, Tony, Jeff, Zach, and myself out to destroy the Bird. Gad Valley was open but we snuck up to the cirque to slay it before it closed. Rich measured the snow depth to be about 70 cm. There was about a foot of new on top of a scratchy facet base. Quite a suprise considering only 4 inches was forecast. Thank you lake effect.

Booting up the north chute of the cirque. Ski patrol later came through and told us they were closing the mountain that day so we just barely made it in time.

bony







Zach Clanton photos below:







Rich
Jeff

Jeff again
Rich
not sure who

ruins

ski patrol scurrying to get the mountain open

The exit was a bit bony but not too bad

Mineral Fork

Near the top of Mineral Fork, aka "The Room of Doom". Zach felt the slope collapse right here.

So we dug down and were shocked to find the pack was almost 6 feet deep! Some major loading must have occured due to the toilet bowl geometery of the cirque. The northwest facing corner of the cirque was very wind scoured while the northeast facing corner that we were in was incredibly loaded from the wind swirling around. Obviously all that weight was putting the October facet/crust layers on the brink of failure. Our weight almost pushed it over the edge.

Looking at the northeast corner of the Room of Doom where we felt the slope collapse. Our pit was dug right above our tracks, about halfway up the bowl.
Met this curious little white mink on the way down.
We watched it prance around us for 5 minutes. It didn't seem to be very afraid.

Snowbird Cirque

We arrived in the cirque to find that the sunday crew tracked it out wall to wall

There was about 10 inches of fluff on crust. Not too bad. Zach shredding here.
A couple of twenty somethings got lost on the gate buttress, spent the night up there, and had to be air lifted out the next morning. Suckers!

Zach Clanton photo of me.