Skiing East Bowl in Silver Fork
- CJ Wolf
- a few seconds ago
- 3 min read
Fast Facts:
Start Elevation: 7,830
Peak Elevation: 10,242
Daily Vertical: 5,140 (see Strava)
Distance: 8.77 miles
Elapsed Time: 5:18
Date: March 7, 2026
Alta reported 35 inches over a 48-hour period from March 4–6, and unlike most storms this year, it came in blower light with a density of just 5–6%. We storm-skied on the 6th and it was overhead pow—the kind of day you dream about all season. Despite this storm, we’re still experiencing one of the lowest snow years in decades, with Alta receiving only 260 inches season-to-date (post-storm). As of March 1, statewide snowpack was just 62% of the median.
We started the day skinning up Silver Fork, heading through Mats Basin before making our way to the ridge.
We took a warm-up run down Silver Spoon, then skinned back up to the ridge and continued south along the ridge until we reached the top of the Football Field. I’ve written about the Football Field before, so if you’d like more background on the zone, you can read more about it in this post.
After skiing the Football Field, we headed back up Silver Fork toward the base of East Bowl. East Bowl is not a run to take lightly given its history. Last year, on February 8, 2025, a ski guide was killed in East Bowl and his client was seriously injured (you can read the incident report here). What makes East Bowl particularly susceptible to avalanches is the terrain at the top of the bowl. The upper section is very rocky and heavily exposed to wind, which often creates wind loading and scouring. This combination can produce an unstable snowpack with significant spatial variability.
On the day of the fatal accident last year, the avalanche danger was rated Considerable, and the daily forecast specifically warned about the possibility of avalanches stepping down into buried weak layers. The day we skied it, conditions were different. The avalanche danger was rated Moderate on upper elevations facing west. More importantly, our Persistent Weak Layer (PWL) had been dormant since February 26 (about 10 days) and was buried 2–4 feet beneath a hard slab of settled snow and crusts. According to the Utah Avalanche Center report, recent snowpit tests suggested the layer was becoming stubborn to trigger. My point is simply that this face has a real history of sliding, and it’s important to approach it cautiously and ski it only when the risk is lower.
We also chose a more conservative track. Rather than entering from Grizzly Gulch and dropping the main line from the top, we skinned up the north side of the bowl (looker’s left) from Silver Fork, which is more protected and we descended skier’s right, sticking to lower-angle terrain that is less prone to sliding. If you enter from Grizzly Gulch and center-punch the main line, the terrain becomes more consequential—it's steeper, rockier, and more variable, which increases the avalanche risk.
As mentioned above, we skinned up the north side (looker’s left) of East Bowl from Silver Fork. This route is less steep and has more trees, which offer some protection.
We aimed toward the saddle between East Bowl and the top of Flanagan’s. Reaching the ridge puts you right on the boundary of the Solitude Mountain Resort near the Honeycomb Cliffs. The east side drops off sharply toward Solitude, with views down to the Summit Chairlift.
On the way up, we noticed a field of sluff debris, so our goal on the descent was to stay skier’s right of that area and remain more in the trees, rather than taking the open slide path. In the photo below, you can see our line on the shoulder—it’s less steep than the center line.
We started our descent at 11:30 AM, and since the run is west-facing, the sun hadn’t yet warmed it, so the snow remained light and soft from the recent storm.