Fresh from Mt. Everest, Mr. HVJ with a new head full of mountainous motivation decided he wanted to do some skiing in the summer. He gave me a call and said he was game for skiing 'suicide chute' on Mt. Superior on Utah's greatest holiday 7/24, Pioneer Day (if you dont know what PIONEER DAY is look it up, frankly utah doesn't give 2 shits about the fourth of july). Me being tapped into some insider info shared amongst the few that are paying attention to these mountains, I VETO'ed his idea, and told him I am once again skiing off the top of Mt. Superior in July weather he was there or not.
Thought about it he did, and he also rallied our friends Peter and Witt and suddenly it's an adventure. I was wondering why everyone wanted to come, as my summer TR's usually get about 50 views on newschoolers and the hype just isn't there so I must not be having a good time.
Near the start of the hike with Superior in the back
Early in the hike, brings the pain.
Soon we found ourselves departing from Alta at the crack of 8:40am. Seemed like everyone already knew my plan and we were on the same page. The hardest part of any hike is the first half hour. You are tired, unmotivated, your heart is working harder than it should and your brain is asking you WHY WHY WHY! We snagged a quick 10 minute rest to let the sweat evaporate and get tuned. After the rest the group was revived and we continued our pace for the summit. The hike up Superior is easier than most people think in the summer, there is literally a trail that any noob could follow to the top. It does contain some elements of suprise though, especially when I' am trying to spice things up for the camera and take the most direct route as well as follow the trail.
HVJ and Mt. Superior, if u see the summit, u see the ski line.
Goat herd, we saw around 15 goats, and a moose on this hike.
A few false summits later, we hit the summit. I couldn't believe it. Did I mention these guys aren't the biggest hikers? Or summer skiers, or had ever climbed Mt. Superior even without 35 pounds on their backs. Something that was on the summit that made me more proud was an american flag. Something about seeing that thing brought a sense of pride and joy. We met a few older generation skiers on top with the same brilliant idea I had. They had skis! We had a straight hippy hang out festival on the summit with about a 60 degree air temp, butterflies cruising around our heads, and no wind to speak of. The jam was building as we realized that yes, we had skis so we didn't have to hike down a rocky face, and yes skiing is THE BEST way to get around in the mountains.
Such a unique setting such as a beautiful summer ski line is very inspiring. All colors are out playing together, and its very easy to forget about pain when pleasure is involved. We were about 4 miles and 3,200 vertical into the hike from where we started, but smiles all around.
The North Bowl of Mount Superior is a classic ski line, that is always over looked as everyone and their moms wants to claim a descent down the front face, the South East Face, which is one of the $ lines in the Wasatch. Some have rumored to even skied this line BN, at night, on vintage gear. Some claim, few deliver. Somehow this winter, this bowl collected maybe the most snow in the Wasatch on one of the deepest years ever and we were standing JULY 24th 2011 on a 8 foot deep block of snow that started 30 feet from the summit and dropped 800-1000 feet into the green valley below.
SUMMER SKIER MAG COVER (minus HVJ's knee)
The turns were great, and I was worried that my crew would think they were inbounds and try to send some high speed lines or something, but everyone kept their skis in check. If you fall on summer snow, you wont stop unless you had like an ice axe or something.
The smiles are fake for the camera, this isn't fun
More fake excitement just for the camera
"summer skier mag' athlete Witt Skiing switch in PIONEER BOWL (North Bowl)
At the bottom of the North Bowl (renamed PIONEER BOWL for the holiday descent), we refilled water and put our hiking boots back on to head for our NEXT ski line. A line I scoped on the way up off 'Little Superior'. The backside of 'Little Superior' is exactly like the front side, its one pitch, and people usually ski it when they can't make the hike or are afraid to go to the summit of SUPERIOR. But these were actually some of the most unique, smoothest, and most fun turns of my summer skiing 'career'. We slayed that, and continued the ski traverse back towards where we came from. We aptly renamed this GOAT LINE.
really suffering at this point. this day sucks!
First person to 'like' this and realize whats going on here gets a free subscription to summer skier mag!
summer skier mag athlete peter gets er dun!
Ive got a feva, and the only prescription is more 8 (Little Superior GOAT LINE 7/24/11)
The next ridge over we found the other line I had scoped from the hike. We dropped in and to my delight, we were making beautiful backcountry ski turns. The group had 'powder 8' fever. From the bottom, after a bum slide off the mountain taken by peter, we stopped and enjoyed our setting and the weather. Then I was like well guys if you are hanging out here, I'm gonna go over there and do some skiing. We were already 7 hours and 3 ski lines into the day at the end of July. It didnt take much convincing, I said we would be skiing in 8 minutes, and we hustled across the slope and we were. These turns were the icing on the massive summer ski cake (pie) we had assembled for the pie-n-ear day.
RUN 1 and RUN 2 if you are following and can read.
hennie sets up the 8's
witt closes the 8's and i follow someones turns to make it an even triple 8.
From line 4 looking back at superior (the 1st line), and the 3rd line of the triple 8s
Line 4 was the photo zone, so we took some keepers.
We tripped over our own tired feet, back to the starting point which we arrived at 9 hours later. A 9 hour slog, of friends, jokes, limits, fun, nonsense and straight up an amazing day.
the outro
Now we sit back and wait for the fame, fortune and babes.
