I had only skied the chutes one other time, the year before. It was May 1st, the last day of skiing at Snowbird; Alta had closed the day before. There had been no snow for two weeks, and all of the high terrain back country was beginning to corn up. So many people were heading out of bounds, you practically had to take a number and wait your turn to go down the pipe line off Twin Peaks into Gad Valley.
On my second tram up, I saw Randy Rosenthal, a 30 year old neo-surrealistic painter from Long Island by way of surfing in Santa Barbara, where my wife had first met him. He had arrived in Salt Lake City three winters before, a total novice at skiing. In the evenings he checked IDs at the Tram Bar; by day, he learned to ski. In the summers, he painted moody pictures of the ocean and mountains, where the waves or the moguls were built up from thousands of tiny, stylized human figures.
We got to talking, and he mentioned he was going over to ski the Baldy Chutes. “Have you ever done ’em before?” I asked.
“No, but there won’t be a better time this season, will there?” he said with his sly grin.
“Guess not. How do we get there?”
“Just ski down this ridge, ” he said, pointing to the shoulder above Chip’s Run, “then climb on up to the top, I guess.”
“Why not? I’m with you!”
Two weeks of sun and cool nights had compacted the snow well. and it was an easy walk up to the bare rocks of the wind-blown west face of Baldy. The top was a gentle rolling snowfield that seemed to drop off abruptly over a cliff. We inched our way along a five foot cornice, seeking the best drop. We were about seven-eights of the way up; to go higher would only take us above a near vertical rock face. Down the slope, to our right was another rock wall; these two outcroppings V’ed in below us to form a gap two ski widths wide about 100 yards down. Beyond that was wide-open terrain leading into a totally deserted Alta ski area, the lifts dead and barren, the moguls wet and brown from the start of spring melt.
Randy seemed a bit hesitant, so I stomped once on the cornice to test its stability, then dropped in at its lowest point.
“A real elevator drop,” I shouted as I windshield wipered down the inch-thick corn nuggets, stopping at the base of the V. Randy scooted up behind me, spraying me up to the shoulders with tiny surface granules, loosened from the night’s icy entrapment. We studied the lonely vista below us. Incredibly, in his three years of working at Snowbird, Randy had never been over Peruvian Ridge to ski at Alta. I pointed out the Watson shelter, the Germania, Collins, and Wildcat lifts. Then we headed down, my Haute Routes riding high in the ever thickening spring slush. A satisfying run, intense and totally personal. Absolutely no spectators.
These thoughts filled my mind as I walked past the patrol hut above Sugarloaf lift. Gliding along the shoulder above Baldy’s lower east face, I loosened the buckle on my Superlights [ed. note: boots of the time, fragile because incredibly light, held together with only one buckle].
(To be concluded)