Halfway through January 2026, I began to realize one of my favorite trips of the year would be very different than usual. This year Salt Lake City and its famous cottonwood canyons were on pace for one of the worst snowpacks on record. Just a few years ago this range received nearly 900 inches of snow in a single season. This January they barely received a dusting. This didn’t really change anything for my group of friends from college, who host a giant reunion style pilgrimage to this area every year. And this year we had the largest showing yet: easily over 100 people in about a dozen airbnbs across the city. About a third of this crew stayed in a cul-de-sac of houses for the whole week, 9 days total of skiing. After about four years of great conditions in Utah, this forecast didn’t really phase me. In fact it presented a pretty unique opportunity. Now that my buddies and I had a couple years of backcountry experience under our belts, we could leverage the lack of snowfall to ski some of the steeper terrain in the canyons that is normally guarded by consequential avalanche conditions. And in particular a small group of us were eyeing a collection of chutes described in the famous ‘Wasatch Bible to steep skiing’ titled The Chuting gallery. When my touring partners and I first started skiing in Utah we were immediately captured by the crazy and daunting terrain the book described. We were inexperienced and stuck to the most basic of terrain . Now it was about a year and a half later and we had no excuse not to finally check out the famous chutes these canyons were known for.
Our first day was already quite special. Myself, Hokaj, and Devin had first made it out to Mt. Wolverine between Alta and Brighton in the spring of 2024 (see trip report here). We looked east to the impressive Wolverine Cirque, but opted instead to stay on the mellow and conservative Wolverine Bowl directly off the summit instead. This time our goal was to ski the prominent chutes described in the Chuting Gallery within the cirque itself. There were 17 chutes in total ranging in difficulty and they were all within about an hour of skinning from the top of the Millie chair in Brighton. This allowed us to keep the intro tour of the week very casual and serve as a warmup for the week. Luckily as we got to the top of the chair it was clear the path was well traveled. We quickly skinned on an established track and eyed the spectacular bowl from the base while picking out some potential bookpacks up the cirque itself. There were a few other groups in the area too, so we made the obvious choice to boot up ‘Granny Chute’. All of us in our group were much more fit than the year prior and this made for a speedy hike up to the ridge. From there we could walk over the ridge and look down our first objective: a chute called “Tips & Tails”. We took some photos of this line from the base and determined it was the most straightforward and filled in of the chutes in the area.
I think we were all a little intimidated because it was the first real consequential line we’ve committed to in the range. Regardless of that fact, we skied much more difficult terrain daily in bounds so it just came down to staying calm and controlled for this descent. I made it down first and it was a total blast. Besides a small rocky crux I mostly linked turns the whole way down. Ian and Devin came down next and we all came down in pretty good style. After looking back up from the base and seeing the tracks we were all ecstatic and really to boot pack up for lap 2. This time around we were battling the clock. Our friends were already at apres in Brighton and we needed to move quick if we wanted to see them in time. Within about 15 minutes we had raced up the bootpack again and headed East towards the ridge connecting Mt. Wolverine and Mt. Millicent. We opted for a mellow exit line that brought us directly back to the skintrack. This time it was a party lap and we were all physiqued on the day. It was only a season or two ago that we had bailed on this area in our introduction touring days. Having the full circle moment that validated our progression made the expeirence much more rewarding. And as a bonus, we met up with our friends for a final round of drinks at Brighton’s A-frame bar.
Skiing the wolverine cirque on the first day of our trip immediately opened our eyes to the potential of the week. There were a few inches of snow forecasted for mid week, but otherwise there was an obviously safe and stable snowpack on all shaded aspects. Every once in a while we would bring up a new idea, most often mentioning our favorite zone off the top of Mt. Superior. Its south face was famous and was directly visible across the street from Alta’s ski resort. Given the warmer temps the south aspect was a stretch to ski, but there was a mini-chute that cut through the face on a NE aspect that was deep enough to keep the snow intact and away from sun exposure. At the same time, more and more people began to arrive and we had to spend the next couple days ripping in bounds. Needless to say, these few resort days were a blast. We had a great group of skiers and we all traded scoping out new zones to go explore throughout Alta and Snowbird. Then by Tuesday afternoon we finally got hungry enough for something more. Our usual crew were getting some Alta Bombs and a snack at Goldminer’s Daughter, the classic meeting spot for our crew. Four of us had our minds set on Suicide Chute, the NE line that cut through Mt. Superior’s South face. Two of them didn’t have backcountry gear, but the route was such a direct line up the face we could just bootpack straight up.
Before we knew it, we were driving down the canyon and to the base of the line at 2pm in the afternoon. We were all in great moods and singing along to songs we had blasted in the car to boost our energy for the vert ahead. At the same time, I also felt quite responsible for the group’s safety. Only myself and Devin really had experience in this type of terrain. We traded off setting the bootpack on the way up and sandwich our friends between us. I had an extra ice axe for each of them, but none of us had crampons. This meant Devin & I needed to really punch in each step to make sure they were stable enough for a safe ascent. The chute was only about 40 degrees but a fall would still be pretty gnarly. Halfway up I took over the lead and really had to work for good footing. Looking down my buddies were definitely a little on edge and taking their time up the ~1500 ft climb. After about an hour and a half we finally reached the highpoint and sat atop the comfortable saddle ledge feeling victorious. Devin started playing some music again and we sat in awe of the setting we see so often from the opposite perspective. It was time to descend and we all knew it necessitated substantial concentration. My first few turns were cautious and slow, making sure to get past the worst of the firm chop at the top of the line. Once we regrouped at the first pitch however, I let loose a bit more and made some incredible turns down the middle of the chute. The rest of the group followed and everyone was skiing great. For me this was quite a special experience. Skiing a classic Chuting Gallery line was one thing, but I also got to introduce my good friends to the ski mountaineering experience in an epic fashion.
On Wednesday after coming down from the high of Suicide Chute, the real ski trip started to form. We had the majority of the group arriving this night and the rest of the week would prove to be utter chaos. For the most part we’d be skiing all day and celebrating with way too many people at night. To add to the craziness, my friend Kasia and I had organized a video contest for our group dubbed the “ACL Torn-ament”. This was a karma-inducing play on the countless injuries people in our group had experienced over the years but really was a light hearted effort to get people to have more fun during the week. We had made t-shirts with hand crafted graphics, an instagram page for publicizing the contest, and stickers in the theme of the PBR logo for anyone who would participate. Despite the lack of great snow, this still served as a great incentive for my group of ski friends to search for new lines, chutes, and cliffs. And then of course a larger portion of the group submitted hilarious videos from every category possible that was not skiing. While the contest was ongoing and more people continued to join in on the fun, my hunger for exploring the backcountry still lingered. Luckily for me, a bigger group of friends who had flew in the night before also wanted in on another tour.
This time around we had a different objective in mind. My local friend Hokaj mentioned that there might still be some remote patches of soft powder left refrigerated in the shaded gullies of north facing terrain. This snow had been resting idle for a couple weeks now and we were hoping it had remained below freezing to stay relatively intact. Ultimately we decided to explore the Cardiff pass area across the street and over the ridge from Alta. I had always wanted to explore this area given its status as the best powder stash near the big resorts (at least that’s where all the heli tours went). It also was the first half of the approach to Mt. Superior itself, which would mean this tour could serve as a sort of scouting mission. However, it also meant that we would need to gain the frozen and choppy south aspect to make it over the ridge. With a mixed group of 6 and an early start, this aspect proved to be quite a nuisance. None of us had ski crampons, so we slid and slipped our way up some precarious kick turns and slowly made it up the hill. There was a pretty high chance this wouldn’t even soften up for the day, so we really were banking on some better conditions looking north. While we transitioned to boots and walked across the ridgetop, Hokaj, Devin, and I looking further ahead towards the larger objectives on Superior. Two chutes were most prominant off the north aspect of Mt. Superior and immediately captured my interest. Next to them was the Cardiac ridge, an impossibly steep face with some of the most intimidating chutes in the area. The whole region had tons of potential, but was also another 1-2 hours at least away from our group.
For now we were after the terrain next to ‘Powerline’ ridge. The snow looked relatively untouched and we all hoped for some soft turns at last. The first few members of the group started down and we could tell right off the bat we had scored. The pitch wasn’t that long, but it was a surprisingly fun little gully with the best powder any of us had that month. The hike out of the drainage wasn’t that bad either, we had only descended maybe 800 feet or so. Afterwards half of the group needed to make it back for lunch and the usual three of us (Hokaj, Devin, and myself) made it back up to the ridge for lap two. We had considered going further to check out Little Superior, but on the horizon we saw some big clouds moving in and opted for a quicker exit. That moment at least set the scene for later in the week, where we would still be craving some of the bigger terrain ahead that we couldn’t make work this day. And so we made it back down the drainage for second portion of remarkably intact snow. The three of us moved pretty fast and were back at the ridge for our third time that day within another half hour. The south aspect then proved to be exactly what we expected and the few turns made never really became soft corn. Regardless, the tour proved to be a great scouting mission and we had a much better perspective on the snowpack, weather, and terrain ahead of us.
Thursday night, Friday, and Saturday are really the highlights of our trip. On the first night, our entire crew made it to a strangely large open bar for a collective night out. Even though my energy was running low, I was almost always recharged in the morning with new arrivals and surprisingly good weather. By Friday it was time for our annual Parking Lot Party (PLP), which took over a rarely used lot at Snowbird and served as an epic apres venue. My friend Plump DJ’d the event as usual, while the rest of us danced and enjoyed a massive crowd of friends. Saturday was another day full of party laps and a group of us aim to celebrate ‘Jeans Saturday’ with a full denim attire. We posed quite a bit while hanging at Goldminer’s Daughter and then skied a victory lap in jorts & tank tops down Wildcat. The trip was nearly over by this point and almost everyone was winding down towards the evening. Really there was only the three usual suspects who had something bigger planned for the final day. Hokaj, Devin, and myself all had an open schedule on Sunday and were hungry for one final push towards Superior.
Our plan was fairly ambitious: we’d bootpack up the East ridge to Mt. Superior’s summit, ski down the cardiac chutes to the north, see if we could score some powder laps, and then exit somewhere around Superior’s south aspect. The ridge was pretty exposed for my partners and I really was not sure if the south face would be skiable safely, so we came into that final day with reserve in case we had to pivot. That morning we managed to make it out the house fairly early and munched on some breakfast while driving up the canyon road. Skinning up to the ridge was easier than our first time and we began booting up the ridge fairly quickly. The route started off pretty mellow, but it was clear the route ahead was rockier and steeper. Another more experienced group passed us while we strapped on crampons at Little Superior’s peak. At this point I could tell Hokaj and Devin were on edge, but I had some solace that we could follow the group ahead and make it there safe. A few sections of the ridge did prove to be quite daunting. We had to scramble on rocks a few times and avoid looking down the exposed faces in both directions. A fall would be very unlikely, but also quite consequential. Finally making it to the summit was a surreal experience. To the West lied the slightly taller Monte Cristo peak, which was absolutely stunning and hung strikingly over the Salt Lake valley below. The group ahead of us were already transitioning at the summit and were about to ski the ‘Heart of Darkness’ chute. It was a popular and steep line that was guarded by a rappel into the opposite drainage. Although we would love to ski that line eventually, our objective that day were the two north facing chutes directly off the summit. They were in decent condition and the three of us were incredibly physced to have made it this far.
Devin went first and linked some great turns the whole way down. Hokaj and I were next and tried our best to follow suit. In contrast to fun powder gullies, the steep chutes made for big and controlled turns while in a wild setting. For me this is just as rewarding and we group up at the bottom excited as ever. At this point we had been moving for a few hours and had to decide our next move. Skiing all the way down to the base of the drainage was our original plan, but it looked like fairly low angle terrain for how much distance we’d need to cover. Devin was also feeling a bit under the weather, so Hokaj and I decided to branch off for some cheeky powder laps up the cardiac ridge face. Another group had just skied down and it looked like an epic descent for a relatively quick 500 ft skin track. Hokaj and I raced up in about 15 mins while Devin took some videos from down below. Above us were the incredibly steep Chutes that served as some of the cruxes of the Chuting Gallery. For today, we were gifted with some fast and soft turns down the face in tandem style. The whole excursion was super quick but certainly added to the day.
When we grouped back up with Devin it really was time for us to start making our exit. Our goal was to time our south face descent for about 3pm when the snow would be softest. Given the exposure and unfamiliarity of the terrain, we opted for the safer Little Superior gully. We had scoped this line out from the Parking Lot Party and knew that it connected with relatively mellow terrain from top to bottom. All three of us slowly made our way down in discrete pitches. I was pretty tired and wanted to make sure I had the strength for controlled turns down. The gully winded back and forth and had some great pockets of real corn on the way down. We all traded taking videos of each other descending some epic terrain consisting of steep rock walls and hanging snowfields on either side. Towards the bottom the route more clearly became well traveled. Moguls and ski tracks were everywhere and we felt we had made it past all the high risk portions of the day. All that was left was to bushwack a bit at the exit before we made it back down to the road to end our day. Before we could rest we’d have to walk and hitchhike up the road to make it back to our car. On the way we were over the moon from the day and were recounting some of the more perilous steps we had made over the ridge. In my opinion this was probably one of the coolest ski tours I had been on to date. We summited one of my favorite peaks in the range, skied a diverse and epic set of terrain, and shared the day with great company.
Afterwards we got some food and drinks with our small crew, but were nearly empty of energy from the craziness of the day and the past week. My flight was later that night and I luckily made it back to Hokaj’s place in the afternoon for a much needed nap. Looking back, this week was probably one of the coolest ski vacations of my life. There was barely any snow and yet the open backcountry terrain coupled with a million of my good friends easily outweighed that fact. Luckily for us, the next year’s trip planned began the day we left and I’m sure we’ll top this year in the future.
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