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Skied Mount Baldy's Main Chute!

ALTA, UT — I went skiing at Alta with friends of my old boss at Snowbird. They are all way better skiers than me, which is why it's so fun skiing with them. They never take the easy way down. Before our first run, they already started talking about skiing Baldy chute, which made me both excited and nervous all at once. After a few "warm-up" runs, we fueled up at the mid-mountain restaurant and hiked up Mount Baldy to ski its main chute, which is a 750 vertical foot, 40-degree steep, 30-foot wide chute dropping off the summit of Mount Baldy. I linked a few pictures below to illustrate the experience. The photos were taken by Steve (my old boss) with his cell phone during the trip.

With our skis slung over our shoulders, we started our hike from the top of the Sugarloaf lift near the connection between Alta and Snowbird ski resorts. Given the lack of snow this season, we walked over rocks for the first part of the hike until we reached the bottom of a bunch of cliff bands about 200 vertical feet above one of the main trails. From there we walked across the snowfield (carefully) until we reached the boot-packed trail that went straight up the mountain.

The hardest part was walking across the snowfield to get to the bootpacked trail going up the mountain. Everyone else in my group was ahead of me. Although the trail up the mountain was a 45-degree steep snow covered face, it was no harder than walking up a staircase because of the prior boot tracks. The view back down was dizzying, but since I was actually leading the pack at this point (by default because the rest of the rest of the group ahead of me had walked right past it), I didn't have time to really look around a lot.

After climbing up the 400-foot face, we reached the ridge. From there the walking was easier, but my skis were rubbing my shoulders raw, my hands were going numb from having to reach up to hold onto my skis, and the sun was freakin' hot. Before heading to the chute, we hung out on the summit for a bit to enjoy the view into Snowbird (on the other side of Mount Baldy) and down into the Salt Lake Valley 7,000 feet below. Despite the 80-degree temperatures in the valley, it was still pretty cold on Mount Baldy.

Next, we skied down the gentle slopes of the the wind-scorn summit to the top of the main Baldy chute. It looked pretty intense, but it was much wider than I had imagined, and a little less steep. I had certainly skied terrain this steep before.

Chris, a 44-year-old ex-ski instructor went first. He skied it all the way to the bottom without stopping. Jordan, a search-and-rescue trained graphic designer from Vermont went next. Steve, my old boss at Snowbird, dropped in off a nearly vertical wall of snow on the North side of the chute. He also made it most of the way down without stopping. I snaked into the chute next, but I didn't start skiing it seriously until after this kid from Buffalo skiing with the most ridiculous old-school technique I have ever seen, blew past me.

So, a 44-year-old guy, a skinny ticket office supervisor, a Vermonter skiing on borrowed skis, and a dude from Buffalo who just started skiing on shaped skis this season kicked my ass down the chute.

I skied it OK. I definitely skied a little more cautiously than I probably needed to, but I didn't want to ruin my day by risking a fall. The snow at the top was excellent, but the chute is fairly popular when it's open, so it had a lot of bumps, which made it difficult. I had to stop a lot because I could feel myself getting out of control a bit, but I skied well in between my breaks. Skiing in between the rock walls was surreal.

With these guys, skiing Baldy Chute wasn't even the end of the day. The next run, we took this gnarly, rocky traverse all the way to the front of the ridge that divides Alta in half. And then we had to take our skis off to walk over some rocky bare spots. Then, we had to hike up a bit. Then, finally, we had to sideslip down between some tight trees over dirt-covered snow to get to "Alf's High Rustler," which is the signature run at Alta. All that remained was some skiing down 1,000 vertical feet of slushy bumps back to the base.

Of course, the day wasn't even finished after that run! We took another run. This time we skied the lift-accessible Baldy Shoulder down to the base, and closed the day with a couple beers at the Goldminer's Daughter hotel.

Now for a couple pictures Steve took with his cell phone...

- The view from Mount Baldy's summit
- Main Chute from the top

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★