Report from January 29, 2023

This morning we decided to go for a chute we’d never skied in Little Cottonwood Canyon, UT.

It has been really hot the past few days so we thought we’d go for corn/slush on a south-facing couloir – Maybird.

When we were scoping it at 8am, Martin mentioned that he saw some fierce rumble in the chute.

When I looked in the binoculars, I thought he was talking about the summit couloir, which looked bumpy but fine to me.

Maybird Couloir

Little Cottonwood Canyon, UT

• Summit (actually a ridgeline):  11,000′
• Car:  7,000′
• Vertical From Car:  3,500′
• Vertical skied:  1,500′
  
• Max Pitch:  40º
• Average Pitch:  37º
• Aspect:  SSE
• Distance:  ?? (our shortened trip was 1.5-miles round trip)
• Time From Car to Summit:  ??
• Car to Car Time:  ?? (our trip was 1 hour & 15 minutes)
• Recommended Equipment:  crampons, ice axe x2, skins, ascent plates 

We skied up the apron and into the chute.

We switched to boots and crampons after about 20 minutes in the chute.

I’d broken away from Martin and Gage a bit and I stumbled onto some old avalanche debris.

No problem.

I continued up unphased.

Over the next little roller in the chute, I came across large, chunky, fresh avalanche debris.

Likely from the previous afternoon.

It had engulfed the chute.

Swallowed it.

This was the 2nd red flag against continuing for me:  

• 2 avalanches had come down our up route and down route path
• The skiing didn’t look fun

There was no way left to ski the chute other than on the fresh avy debris and it was essentially unskiable.

I yelled down to the guys that we were turning around.

There was no pushback.

It felt good to turn around.

We put on our skis and enjoyed the 1,500-vertical-feet of the chute that we scampered up.

By 9:30am it was already so hot that the snow in the lower chute was pretty soft and large rock walls were shedding small bits of snow.

That was the 3rd red flag for me:

• Temperatures are hotter sooner than anticipated

We finished the chute with a quick bushwhack down the apron and back to the cars.

We all agreed that it felt good to turn around.

I simply cannot wait to come back for this line someday soon.

Photos in Chronological Order