The other day when I was up on the summit of Superior I saw a few local wasatch skiers head down Monte Cristo and into the direcctissimo line. This line had been on my hit list for a while and I knew if I wanted to ski it this season I should get on it soon. A few days later I was headed back up the ridge of Superior with my friend Charlie, a rope, and plans to ski the direct. We once again made good time on the approach, enjoying great morning views of the Wasatch mountains and also the lack of people heading up Superior. Maybe it had something to do with being closing day at Alta or the early start, but we didn't see anybody else from start to the finish, a rare thing for spring days in this area. We moved past the summit of Superior along the ridge to Monte Cristo. It was still early enough to ski the headwall of Monte Cristo, a southeast facing snowfield hanging on the side of cliffs to skiers right that was made a classic through "edge of the world" photographs.
Gaining Cardiff Pass
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On the way up Superior ridge |
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| Monte Cristo Headwall (Picture taken the other day) |
The headwall ended up having perfect skiing. We timed it just right to take advantage of soft playful snow but not too soft to make wet slides an issue. After enjoying some great skiing down the headwall, the line curves skiers right down a chute. This section of the descent is shadowed by the South ridge of Superior and contained a lot of icy debris. We pieced our way through this section and got a few more soft turns before the rappel. On skiers left it's possible to branch out into the line Monte Cristo Gully. I've never skied the line and didn't bother to check it out, but heard it usually holds snow for a while if one wishes to avoid the rappel. However it also avoids the bottom half of a great line and a fun rappel. With the current amount of snow, there was two rappels to get through the cliffs blocking the route. The first rappel anchor is located on the rock face to skiers right, just as the line cliffs out. There was an extremely icy section in the way of this anchor that required a few exposed tricky moves to get by. Thankfully my partner Charlie seemed exited to test it out after I backed away. This first rappel was pretty short, only about 50 feet at most, and brings you to the second main rap, located skiers right on the obvious tree. This one was much, longer, probably around 100 feet with the current amount of snow. Both rappels went smoothly and we were putting our skis back on with more great skiing ahead of us.
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| Charlie getting some smooth turns on the edge of the world |
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| First Rap |
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| First Rap |
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| Second Rap |
From the bottom of the rappel the line wraps around a small cliff and continues south through the obvious gully. It wraps left and right several times, with the snow riding high up on both sides of the couloir, half pipe style. The skiing through this section was very fun, soft and playful. At a few points near the end it was a bit too soft and made the skiing difficult but it's all part of spring skiing, and much better than the icy debris up top. We kept our eyes out for any potential wet slides coming off the south face but didn't see any activity as we enjoyed the rest of the skiing. At the end of the gully there was one part we had to take off the skis to get around, but other than that we were able to ski right to the road. I'm sure this is going to change in the next week as the river continues to poke its way out of the snow. It was a fun day of skiing and an awesome line I was able to check out.
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| Skiing down shortly after the rappel |
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| Exiting the gully in some mashed potato snow |
GH
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