Mount Superior - Cardiac Chutes

Mount superior is a quintessential classical ski tour for any skier/rider who frequents the Wasatch. Most enthusiasts entrain their attention towards the prominent south face that's across the canyon from Alta/Snowbird. While this is a phenomenal ski along with being line apart of the 50 classic ski descents of North America, the north side offers a variety of options with slightly less committing terrain.

In 2020 a crew from our college took a spring break trip out to the greater Salt Lake area and decided on this tour due to the snow quality and available options.

We started by driving up the 190 towards Brighton/Solitude mountains and left the trailhead around 5.

Left: Team ascending the summer road

This was quite a conservative time plan as we had a large variance in ability and fitness in our large crew. As dawn broke we found ourselves ascending a beautiful canyon with exceptional skiing all around us. We finally broke out of the trees to the large open face that would be our goal for the day, the Cardiac Chutes.

Right: First glimpse of the summit & our ski descent

As we ascended the bowl, the slope angle increased steadily to about 35-37 degrees for roughly 600 vertical feet. After an engaging skin to the ridge we had one final precarious boot pack to reach the summit and our line.

After a few moments on the summit taking in the views and reveling in the moment, it was time to drop.

Left: Tangible feelings of stoke as we get closer to our ski

We had some amazing turns on the upper section with boot-top powder and smiles accordingly. These conditions persisted until we reached the summer road. Once here we took another snack and water break before descending the road back to our cars.

I couldn’t recommend this ski enough to folks visiting the Wasatch. This north face seems to hold snow quite well and sees nearly a fraction of traffic that the south side does. It was a perfect objective for the crew we had that day!