I’ve spent most of my teenage years skiing up Little Cottonwood Canyon and staring at the crazy mountain across the road. 10 years ago it got skied regularly, but only be a few people. Now, Mount Superior gets skied by many people regularly. I’m always impressed by how many really good skiers there are in the Wasatch, and the amount of lines almost any given day on Mount Superior are a testament to that.

Nestled right at the top of LCC across the street from Snowbird, and also prominent form Alta, this peak sits at 11045 feet. It’s steep South East face is inspiring just to look at. Most lines look scarier from far away than they do up close, and that was my hope with this one as well.

Today we didn’t go out to ski the face we stare at, we planned to ski the other side, a beautiful, long, and steep North East facing bowl. It’s the same approach to the summit regardless of which side you’re going to ski, so we parked by the “Our Lady of the Snows Center” and started the skin to Cardiff pass. From there it’s a ridge skin/boot to the summit. It starts with a fair bit of kind of scary down skinning before beginning the proper ascent.

It started off reasonable, but eventually we ended up on the more south facing slope, and the snow became a lot slipper. At one point the skinner descended and then cut across a cliff band, where we felt if we slid we would die. Not the best worst case scenario. So we played it safe and transitioned before the cliff band and skied the the run between the summit and two trees.

It was really great skiing at the top where it hadn’t softened up too much and was still supportable. It was fast and consistent, and we made really great turns going down. It was our first time skiing anywhere on Superior, so I was pretty stoked just to be there!

After a fun run down this face, following tracks so we didn’t cliff out (which is really easy to do on Superior btw), we felt like true LCC backcountry skiers as we put our skis on our shoulders and walked back up the road to our car.

I’m looking forward to spending more time on this beautiful mountain, and skiing off the face.