South face of Superior 1/17

The southeast face of Mt Superior is one of those lines that never lets me down. Every time I go up there I always end up finding great skiing, and have an overall awesome day. It's less than three hours to the summit, and the face spits you out close to your car, with about 3,000 feet of magnificent ski terrain in between. Not to mention the great views you get the entire way up.

South face of Mt Superior

Hiking up

However, this time I actually didn't think the skiing was going to be that good. After a week of sunny skies and temps up to the the 40's, I was pretty confident that I would be battling some sort of strong crust for most of the descent. I set out with the goal of scoping out two other lines up there that I was curious weather or not they had enough snow yet: Monte Cristo Direct and Heart of Darkness. After making it to the summit in a little over two and a half hours, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was still a good amount of fresh snow up there. Where there wasn't fresh snow, the snow was soft and untracked, which made it possible to gain speed and throw in some big turns down the face.

A bit of scrambling on the ridge

Psyched!

3,000 feet later and I was back at the road, psyched on the conditions, great Wasatch weather, and the company of skiing with some new friends I met on the way up. Now that conditions are starting to stabilize, at least on some south facing terrain, it looks like it's time to take advantage of this and get on some steep terrain. About time!

Ben on his way out of the first choke

Great run

GH