A few pics from Rainbow Peak

The weather did not look as fantastic as previous days, and the sun had been out potentially frying a lot of snow. Me and David decided to go poke around Rainbow Peak, and see what we could find. We got a glance of the area a few days earlier, when we climbed White pine ridge, although the clouds made it hard to really get a proper look. Expectations were not very high, is a Wasatch sense of the words, meaning that we were still convinced that there were some good turns to be had, but maybe not as good as previous days.

The clouds hung heavily over the canyon, and we only met a couple of people at the trailhead. The skin track was good and we made fast progress up the ridge.

Colour coordinated, sweaty and happy

As we got higher, the light turned quite spectacular with a sun that barely made it through the cloud cover. Snow looked good on northern aspects, a lot better than anticipated actually. A bit of wind effect was seen, but stability seemed good and in the trees it was nice and fluffy. After a quick lap down a nice little technical slope with small trees and a good pitch to it we gained the ridge again and went for the summit.

The clouds are getting thinner as we come close to the summit

Timing was perfect, we got the view, the sun and still cold snow for the down.

Pfeifferhorn peaked through the cluds just as we reached the summit

We found the entrance to the chute going off the ridge close to the peak. Higher up on the ridge there was a steep face with big trees that looked utterly tempting, but since we couldn't see what was below we took the safer and better scouted option. There might be ridable lines after the trees, but later from below we could also see a few cliff bands, so I guess it was a good decision. The line we skied was brilliant anyway, so no big loss.

David enjoying a nice chute off the NW side of Rainbow

All in all a great day that surprised us with better snow and weather than expected. Thanks to David for the company and pics, I hope to see you in not too long on some mountain on the other side of the world.