Ever since I first hiked the Pfeifferhorn shortly after moving to Utah, I've always had the Northwest Couloir in the back of my mind. With stable conditions and "supposedly" solid weather for the morning, Justin and I set out early to ski it. We rolled up to the White Pine Trailhead and were on the trail by around 4. The approach over into Red Pine and up to the lakes went really well and we made good time. After gaining the ridge near No Name Baldy we were able to get a few views of the surrounding Wasatch before the bad weather rolled in. We watched the clouds swallow the Pfeiff and move down to us just in time for the knife's edge traverse.
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| Views of Box Elder and Utah Lake |
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| Approaching the knifes edge ridge as the clouds rolled in |
Justin led the ridge with the one ice-ax we brought and kicked steps for me to follow. I felt a little bit exposed on the ridge without a self-arrest tool, but the snow was stable and none of the moves were difficult. The traverse was much more fun then scary. At the end of this traverse we reached the base of where the Pfeifferhorn jets out from the rock, earning it's nick-name "Little Matterhorn". The standard route goes up the southeast facing snowfields to the summit, but we found ourselves sinking into a lot of deep wind drifted snow and thought it would be safer to stay mostly on the ridge going up from the East. From the start of the knifes-edge ridge to the summit it had been mostly a complete whiteout and we weren't sure if it would be safe to drop the NW couloir with the really poor visibility, since neither of us had skied it before.
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| Justin leading the way |
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| Weather clearing up on the Pfiefferhorn summit |
Fortunately the weather cleared a few minutes after summiting and we were able to get a view of what we were skiing. We threw on our harnesses and got ready for the descent. On most years you can drop right from the summit and ski to the main rappel. However, there was about a 15 foot ice and rock gully about 50 feet down that couldn't be skied. This became a problem for us and our 30 m rope we brought. To get down I lowered Justin to below the gully, rappelled down as far as I could go and did some sketchy downclimbing to get through the gully. Not exactly what I wanted to be doing above a 50 degree chute into a cliff. From the bottom of the gully we enjoyed a few hundred feet of steep skiing in variable snow before inching up to the rap station. The anchors are almost directly about the drop-off on skiers right and can be a little scary to get to. There is another anchor about 40 feet above it on skiers left for those who don't feel comfortable approaching the main rap but not very necessary. Our 30 m rope worked perfectly for the current amount of snow and the rappel went smoothly. From the bottom of the cliff, the route raps around skiers right of some large cliffs and we enjoyed our turns in damp snow down the apron as more clouds rolled in. We skied by many of the awesome lines in Hogum Fork as we made plans for future link-ups. Opting for the exit out of Hogum Fork, we skied for as long as we could and then bushwhacked out for about an hour until we reached the road. The NW Couloir was definitely one of the craziest lines I'd ever skied and inspired me to get on some more technical routes in the future.
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| The main rappel in the couloir |
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| Skiing out the apron |
GH
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