cold fusion, check.

Tick.

Or something like that. Maybe it’s Check.

Either way, I finally got the monkey off my back. For five years I’ve stared at this out my bedroom window:

That’s the North Peak of Mt. Timpanogos. That clean line on the left is called Cold Fusion in some guidebooks, and it’s a 3,000 foot shot of hard-to-match beauty. But it’s hard to get in good and safe conditions, and when conditions are good and safe, it requires a bit of a haul to get to. When the road is closed, it’s a snowmobile to the base and a booter straight up, or when the paved road is open, it’s a 4 mile hike into the base, and a 3,000 foot booter straight up.

And when the dirt road is open, well, it’s not good and safe by then, is it?

I don’t want to rub the joy I feel in finally skiing this line in the faces of any of the knuckleheads who chose to ride their bikes in fast circles in Corner Canyon instead of skiing Cold Fusion with Wonder Twin Rob and me yesterday, so I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Oh, and Kim took a picture almost identical to the one above, from my porch (also taken from my porch), while Rob and I were booting, just above the rock band. On my fancy camera, I can zoom far enough in to actually see us. What I can’t figure out on my fancy camera is how to then take that picture and crop it and save the cropped and zoomed picture. So you’ll just have to trust me on that.

A low and inauspicious start. And a pack that just groans under the weight of those giant clown skis I love so much:

There was enough snow on the Timpooneke road to tempt us to put skins on. And enough dirt to make us regret not bringing bikes. But each of those only lasted about 50 feet or less at a time. Generally.

At the base of the chute, after a 4 mile slog in carrying skis AND boots, we finally got the boots onto our feet.

And it got steeper:

And steeper:

And even steeper:

The views were nice. If you squint your eyes just right, you can see my house back there.

What’s in the bottle? CarboRocket of course. Wish I’d brought more. By the time we were hiking back to the car we were eating snow.

Not really sure what Rob’s got going here. I think maybe he’s mad I took the camera:

He looks like Seth in No One Talks To Me mode.

Back at it:

We ran into another group on the way up. Literally. Okay, not really literally.

Do I look mad here? I don’t know why. Oh, wait, I know why–this was the first of several false summits:

Rob, also realizing we still had a ways to go:

Here at the top I’m looking into what they call the Grunge. Kind of like the Grudge. But not.

Looking DOWN the Grunge. And no, not skiing that. 62 degrees. Let me say again–Not. Not Today anyway.

Rob looking into the Grunge. See how the color drained from his face when he looked?

Still hasn’t got his color back:

I’m heading down for 3,000 feet of creamy Spring goodness. We decided to ski onto the direct North face for the first 1,000 feet or so, jus fer fun. It completely cliffs out though, so then we traversed back to Cold Fusion proper.

 

Back to Cold Fusion directissimo:

 

Notice how all the pictures are of me? Well, that’s because Rob brought the camera. I brought the Flip video camera. But I haven’t had any time to mess with the footage, adding hip hop music and whatnot. Some other time, perhaps.

Looking back up at the north face, with Cold Fusion hidden behind the ridge.

My legs don’t hurt, but my shoulders do. 8 miles with skis and boots on the pack, that can hurt.

Tick. Er, Check.

Let’s look at it again. Jus fer fun.