Two years ago, Derek pointed out a pyramid-shaped face on Timpanogos as we skied along the ridgeline.  We peeked over the edge but, because the line gets steeper and steeper the lower you go, we thought it might cliff out at the bottom and skied elsewhere that day.  We didn’t make it back to the pyramid face that year, or last year, but after a recent storm plastered 13″ of water, all of it in the form of snow, we figured it’d be worth investigating the line again.  After a not-nearly-long-enough 3.5 hour sleep, I motored an hour down the valley to meet Derek, Tom, Noah, Andy and Alex.  As Derek pointed out, it’s a good sign when everyone shows up early for a 5:15am rendezvous.

We began skinning in the dark and wound upwards through the Grand Staircase as dawn broke.  As we climbed above treeline we got our first views of the east face of Timp’s north summit – the line we hoped to ski.  Following a mile of rideline walking we crested the summit a bit after 11am.  The sky was that deep-sea blue that happens on crisp January days when the sun’s orbit is still low in the south – the same sky you see through the little round window when cruising at 35,000 ft.

The route down was similar to the east face of Twin Peaks here in the central Wasatch – similar steepness with lots of rocky outcrops and gully options across the wide face and about the same vert too.  Unlike the east face of Twins, the bottom of this route cliffs out in a big way.  We traversed off the face above the 200+ ft cliffs glad we’d saved the mission for a day with really, really, really high snow stability.