Fast Facts:
Start Elevation: 8,680
Peak Elevation: 10,530
Vertical: 2,551 (per strava)
Distance: 3.40 miles
Elapsed Time: 2:34
Date: Mar 27, 2024
The 2024 season continues to produce with Alta at 550" as of March 27 and when we skied this route, LCC had received about 3.5 feet over the last 4 days. This day was going to be the first blue bird day in the last 4 days so the goal was to hit the trailhead early.
Our goal was to get to the top of Flagstaff Mountain and either ski Upper Days or Two Dogs in Big Cottonwood and then ski back down Toledo Bowl or Flagstaff Face. You can reach Flagstaff Mountain by coming up Days Fork from BCC or starting in LCC. The LCC approach is only a 1,500 vertical gain vs 2,800 from BCC and it is about 2.5 miles shorter. We elected the quicker route and departed from the Central Alta trailhead by 6:30 AM. It was a very busy morning and we immediately got stuck behind a group of 7 and it confirmed why the Wasatch Range is nicknamed "Wasangles". The Central Alta trailhead is a very popular trailhead as it accesses Mt. Superior, Cardiff Peak and Flagstaff.
From the trailhead (see pic below), head west (left) towards the gun tower.
You will be the right of the gun tower and will aim towards the electric pole lines but you won't cross under them as you will wrap around the west side of Flagstaff Shoulder and then will turn right (east) to follow the shoulder up to the ridge.
Once you turn right to start climbing the shoulder, it starts to get steep but pretty standard skin track for the Wasatch.
The skin track heads east and as it wraps around to the east, you will get great views of upper Little Cottonwood.
You will then head towards the Wyssen avalanche towers.
And then the ridge is within site but you probably won't be alone.
Once on the ridge, we headed west/left towards the Flagstaff Mt summit as we debated heading to the north side of the bowl to ski Upper Days but the lines along the way up to the summit were too tasty to pass up. This area is called Two Dogs and there are several shots along this ridge to choose from. The vert is only about 550 feet but the pitch is a consistent 30-35 degrees.
We headed back up to the ridge and then summitted Flagstaff. From here, we could have skied straight down to Toledo Bowl and back to the car but the lines closer to Toledo Chute were appetizing so we removed the skins and took a few turns on the skier's right side of Toledo Bowl and the transitioned back up to the Toledo ridge and skinned towards Toledo Chute. The proper Toledo Chute, which is the far skier's right line, was already skied and cut up so we decided to ski the more open face just before the main chute and it was epic.
