A quick tour behind Clayton Peak, UT 2/11:

[rvrscum]

Had a rare day off, gave me the chance to finally take out the new touring set-up. Sleeping in was a priority, so that limited my range of objectives. Settled on a chute that I've looked at for years and always wanted to bag. Its on an eastern spur off of Clayton Peak, Brighton Resorts highest point:







Getting closer. I was going to hit this last year, but slednecks beat me too it. No tracks, but looked like some slide debris:







Moving along:







Almost there, and this line starts to grab my attention:







Shifted view, with summit of Clayton on right:







This is a short, but steep and technical line. I guessed it to be in the mid-upper 40 degree range:







Looking up my target objective, with slide debris in foreground:







Really challenging snow conditions. Traversed over a hard wind crust just to get to the foot of the chute, which was marginally better. Started up with crampons, and after about 100', just went to bootpack:







Was making good progress up the chute, but nearing the summit I started getting into some cross-loaded wind drift snow. This was a red flag and difficult to attain as well. I also had to get back for a shift for my night job so I turned around about 3/4 of the way up:







I'm really digging the new lightweight set-up. I made excellent time on the trip, and they skied the crappy snow just fine. Going to Brighton tommorrow to look at these lines from the top. Enjoy!

[Zone Driven]

Nice report

[mmmtaters]

Gotta see the distant pics... nice shot!