The Heart of Darkness

February 15, 2011


Aesthetically pleasing and positively terrifying, the “skiable” section of the Heart of Darkness is guarded by 30 feet of jagged funk resembling a shark’s mouth full of ice and snow. The sheer sidewalls of the chute soared skyward as we tiptoed to the anchor and rigged up our rappel. descending dwyer knot

Dwyer descended to the end of the line, where he reported that both the tips and tails of his 180cm Black Diamond Verdicts were touching rock.

I followed, and gingerly clicked into my skis before Dwyer edged down a few feet and began making hop turns down to a small safe zone.

I found snow conditions to be less than a desirable match to my skill set, and I sideslipped a generous portion of the choke before opening it up down low.

The snow improved as we emerged from the chute’s bowels, and we were kicking up sizable plumage for the majority of the apron.

More enjoyable turns down rolling terrain led us down the Mill B drainage and the inevitable bushy, icy bobsled exit.

We arrived to the S-Curves trailhead in Big Cottonwood Canyon just in time to meet the throngs descending from a day at the resorts.  Also waiting for us was none other than the Famous Internet Skier himself, one Porter Haney, who couldn’t accompany us due to a serious bout of the Smuggler’s Blues. But he did find it in his gracious heart to bring us a paper bag full of wobbly pops and give us a ride back to our car at Alta, where we retired to the Sitzmark Club to toast yet another amazing day in the mountains.

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Read about the author:   Porter Haney
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  1. TR: The Heart of Darkness

9 Comments

  1. powhounddd
    wrote on February 15th, 2011 at 8:33 pm  
    1

    That was awesome. Talk about being between a rock and uh…a rock.

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  2. christian
    wrote on February 15th, 2011 at 8:56 pm  
    2

    nice one boys’s’. what exactly is going on with your rappel system??

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  3. Adrian
    wrote on February 15th, 2011 at 9:19 pm  
    3

    Wow, looks like great fun!

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  4. Sam
    wrote on February 15th, 2011 at 10:07 pm  
  5. Dwyer
    wrote on February 16th, 2011 at 12:10 am  
    5

    @Christian:
    The fixed line that was up there (blue rope) was buried under some windblown gnarbar. Had to rap down on the rando-rope (red rope) to free her up @ the base. Andy then brought the rando rope back up and dropped in heavy on the fixed line in order to blow shit up like a powder gangster.

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    • christian
      wrote on February 16th, 2011 at 6:26 pm  
      6

      he must be the smoothest of operators

  6. Lionel Hutz
    wrote on February 16th, 2011 at 8:12 am  
    7

    That’s awesome guys. Way to go. However I would have ridden it switch to the road and straight-lined that coolie. Why? Because I’m an idiot.

    P.S. What’s a wobbly pop? Is that a UT thing?

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  7. Andy Anderson
    wrote on February 16th, 2011 at 1:05 pm  
    8

    Wobby pop = Canadian slang for beer (I’m not canadian)

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
    • Lionel Hutz
      wrote on February 16th, 2011 at 3:38 pm  
      9

      That’s ok. I don’t know anything about Canada. I compared the Hudson Bay to Compton.

      Great TR. Welcome to the team. Look forward to getting out with you next time I’m in UT.

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