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Show 14 February 1997 Chutes, was still closed due to control work. Our guides therefore decided to ski a run in-area to evaluate the group’s ability. I followed Hughes’ perfect three-pin arcs down a steepish powder shot with slightly less-perfect turns on my stale morning legs; halfway down we stopped to watch the group’s prowess. There was no mistaking these folks for the PSIA demo team. Several disjointed traverses, a few yard sales, and fifteen minutes later, the two guides huddled up and brought the verdict that none of the skiers was skilled enough for the intended terrain or the day’s avalanche conditions. Like a doctor reporting terminal cancer to a longtime friend, it sections on routes suchas the write, as the rest of the week Highway to Heaven, Grizzly was fully booked with paying customers. “Stick around,” Hughes intimated while collecting the last of the Pieps, “we're doing a recon trip to check out the snowpack, and you can come along.” Barely containing my elation to be going at all, let alone with two guides to myself, I jumped in the company van (Baldy Chutes remained closed) for the short trip to Alta. After filling the allimportant coffee tankards, we headed up Supreme and hiked out Catherine’s pass to Gulch, several waist-deep sustained Sunset Peak, the was plain that they weren't happy bearing these tidings. Surprisingly the clients took B the news with- & out a whimper, heartened by Keller’s encouraging them to. try Gc again later in the week. “They’re probably more relieved than embarrassed at this point,” Keller whispered to me. “When they [the two repeat clients] skied with us last year, lective demotion left me _ without a tour or an article to it was the [easier] Park City route in-spring corn snow.” It is not uncommon for one or two skiers in a tour to be excused with a full refund. Safety is the guides’ first concern, and fragile egos notwithstanding, they are forced to tell it like it is. Although the office at Ski Utah attempts to inform potential clients ahead of time about requisite skiing skills and fitness levels, skiers notoriously overrate themselves. Unfortunately, the col- oa: >. Baie Mes OS LS STOR oO: ever arise. To date snowboards and monoskis are not welcome on the tours; the flat traverses make snowboarders prohibitively slow, and Alta’s snowboard ban seals the deal. Look for the new split snowboards, like Voile’s Split Decision, to change this policy in coming seasons. This tour is not to be missed, for locals and tourists alike. Certainly backcountry skiers have spent years touring many of these nuns a driver who o you a favor, or a hitchhiking jones. If you’re in favor with the financial gods, you can pony up three to five hundred for a Cat or Heliskiing day, and you should. But don’t ignore the affordable opportunity to ski these same lines, get great workout, and commune with nature in the process. routes on their own, but to do the “Tobaggon Although Chutes.” the snow on the traverse seemed pretty windpacked to me, Hughes crept out along a ridge with an earto-the-ground, Obi-Wan type of mystic deliberation. When he finally found what he was looking for, he dropped in Dogleg Chutes, and Patsy Marley. We dined in style at Solitude around midday before heading back toward Alta, pausing at each ski area to exchange gossip with the local ski patrol. By day’s end I was longing for the comfort of my. and disappeared in a series of telemark boots; though effortless face shots. I followed suit, orgiastically mirroring -Hughes’ tracks with a mouthful of cold smoke down the entire pitch. Keller’s sinuous lines completed the picture. The rest of the day was a carbon copy of this first run. We hiked and traversed a modest amount, only slightly more than on an adventurous day at Alta; the reward was clients ski in alpine gear, al the guides do it Scandinavian-style for the ease of hiking and breaking trail, digging hasty pits, and performing potential rescues. Though a helicopter rescue has never been most required in fourteen years on _ the Interconnect Tour, the guides have strategically stashed tobaggons for warmth and protection should the need Page 7 the whole circuit you’ll need either an Interconnect ticket, The best tool to build an enormous kicker in the backcountry, dig your car out, and save your bro’ from being buried in an avalanche.... The Lifelink HMX D shovel a |