Every summer trip is an adventure. Hiking boots, bikes, shorts, tans, wildlife, bikinis this year (not me) and even BN's (guilty). People have just recently started to want to come skiing with me in the summer, that's strange. The more you summer ski, the more you look for a different adventure. I also look for minimal car use aside from phish tour so that limits the options.
I came up with the brilliant idea, of ski touring alta in september, when i realized all my favorite summer patches still existed. What a claim to ski something in September other than the standard patch or these epic freshys Sept 1, 2008.........
I packed my shit and took a Trackhead start at around 11:45 and headed up Good ole Greely Hill towards Gunsight. What a phenominal hike, in the winter, this could be neck deep blower. In the summer its neck deep wild flowers. I only sneezed about 100,000 times and had things crawling on my legs that I couldnt even imagine. Here I could see my next line too in the distance, the castle apron, or something like it.
When I got to the top of gunsight, i realized the snow was about 100cms wide, I should have had my dammed mini skis. Luckily it was elevated higher than the rocks so I was able to wiggle my way down and take my ski boots off and put my hiking boots on and head towards the Devils Castle.
I talked to a few hikers along the way and soon I was at Cecret Lake. From here I took the high line traverse that led me to the bottom of the choss pile of the apron. Somewhere in the castle I found a gigantic heddy 2 pound crystal and carried it across the terrain not wanting to take my pack off and stop.
At the top of the 2 steps forward, 2 steps backward devils castle apron summer approach I packed away the crystal and geared up for what looked like a thrilling descent. Knee deep ice waves scattered with jagged limestone and rotten egg smelling gun powder. Glad thats over.
From the castle apron I could see the top of Mt wolverine, too many miles away, happened to be my next objective. I once again packed up my shit and put my hiking boots and put traverse on my mind, I was at alta afterall.
I traversed around under the east castle, then hit road, then traversed more on old road until I hit the sublime wildflower meadow of Pointe Supreme. I took a long rest here, my legs were pissed.
Hoofing it out catherines, to the sandy beaches of rocky point, up the "patsy booter" towards Wolverine. I was becoming more and more fatigued and my 32 ounces of water was long gone.
I got to the top of Wolverine and my thoughts were confirmed. Shit looked brutal. I down climbed with rubber legs to the top of the snow, put in some more turns on knee deep waves traversed over a boulder patch to another patch of slightly calmer seas and tripped over loose granite to the bottom. The teetering granite continued for too long and I finally was back in Little Cottonwood. A brutal multi-mile downhill ended the loop about 7 hours later.
This happened to make it so I skied devils castle every month of the year If i remember right that it opened in December since we hit a big dump and we able to ski deep power in the apron and headwall early November. Rad.
