Northeast Couloir of Lone Peak 3/20

The NE couloir of Lone Peak has been the number one line on my hit list of the Wasatch for over a year now. An amazing looking line, threading down the massive face of Lone Peak in steep and glamorous fashion. With it's AK style spines, it doesn't even look like it belongs in the Wasatch.

The mighty NE couloir of Lone Peak

Today was finally the day to get after it. The wind pockets had dissipated substantially from the last few days and the weather looked great. Joe Lohr and I set off from Bell's Canyon Trailhead around 3 a.m., psyched to finally check out this line. The first few miles went smooth, following a solid dirt trail in my sneakers. Sooner or later the trail started getting icy and finally disappeared. It was about this time I switched to my ski boots and then eventually skins. On our left we could see huge rock walls outlined by the moon. Definitely want to check out the climbing up Bell's this spring. Behind us we could see the lights of the city still asleep.

Salt Lake City at 4 a.m

Five or six miles later we approached the bottom of the northeast face. Now that's a mountain. There was a colorful sunrise to the east at this time and we stopped to take in some views. To enter the NE couloir it's necessary to start in a couloir lookers left and then traverse over some cliffs that blocks the straight forward entrance. We ended up missing this entrance and going a little too far. We had to downclimb some steep snow to get back on track. After rounding the corner of the traverse, it was a straight bootpack to the top. The fresh deep snow inspired us to get to the top before it got to warm. We arrived at the summit a little later than ten after battling through a lot of soft snow that we would sink right into at the top. We opted to not scramble the 10 feet of rock up to the true summit to save some time.

Looking back at the Wasatch

Joe making his way up

Views from the otherside

After attaching the skis, we waited a few minutes for a party of two behind of us to top out before dropping. Kinda bizarre seeing another group up there, I'm sure they were thinking the same thing but voiced they were happy to have a bootpack already in place. I dropped first and enjoyed steep and deep terrain for the following thousand feet. As we dropped, one of the members of the party behind us snapped our pictures. Thanks a lot to Adam Clark Photography for sending them to me! The run was killer. We paused for a second above the cliffs we had to traverse around on our way up and decided to take the direct route. This involved dropping a 20 foot cliff to get to the apron. Joe went first and sent it right of the nose. I followed and found a line to skiers right. I was pleased to find the snow soft in the landing, and enjoyed the next few turns through the apron. 

PC: Adam Clark

PC: Adam Clark

PC: Adam Clark

PC: Adam Clark

Steep and fun

Let's go with the direct exit

Joe getting ready to drop the cliff

The rest of the skiing out of Bell's went well and we enjoyed soft snow until it dissappeared. We raced out the icy dirt trail and made good time back to the car. Good thing since I barely made it to class on time. This was a morning for the books and one of the better runs I've ever had. Both the line and mountain was unreal.

GH