Murdock Peak - February 28 2024

Central Wasatch Range, Park City, Utah
2927m

After dealing with months of the historically terrible snowpack at home, I decided enough was enough, and took to the roads to solve that problem. Specifically, I went to Utah, where Park City was having the snowiest February on record. After a ridiculously long drive down from BC, we got our reward of an excellent powder day skiing inbounds. On the next day, though, things warmed up, the sun came out, and many (but definitely not all) lines were skied out. So, me and Nick (my partner for the trip, and usual ski buddy) went and hit a couple sneaky tree lines while we waited for avy control to clean up the bootpacks which they'd ignored the previous day, and just before 11am the rope dropped, and we set our sights on the Murdock Peak bootpack.

Nick went ahead since he was just going to carry his skis in his hands, but since I had my pack, I bothered strapping them up. I considered skinning, but the bootpack was well-set, and the skin track didn't start until higher up, so I just decided to suffer with my heavy-as-heck resort skis+frame bindings on my back, and started following the herds after a few minutes of strapping things up. I was too lazy to take my layers off, which was definitely a choice, but the outing wouldn't be so long that sweat would be a disaster, so I just ignored that fact and started moving, hoping to catch up before Nick topped out the main ski lines.

It took about 20 minutes to top out a bit over 100m of bootpack, a combination of my tiredness from the previous powder day, the heavy gear, and some congestion in the upper third of the bootpack where the people ahead of me didn't seem to have the mental capacity to spare to let me past, so I just let them take their time. Once I got up, Nick confirmed I still have yet to convert him to the peakbagging life, and that he was going to drop and lap the resort while I suffered needlessly to the summit above.

Past the top of the steep bootpack seen above, the rest of the bootpack inbounds is pretty easy. Far fewer people made the trek around to the top of the bowl, but there were enough that the bootpack was still firmly set. 5 more minutes of walking and I ended up at the edge of the ski resort boundary, where I had to duck a rope saying "Closed - Ski Area Boundary". I took that to mean "this is not patrolled or avy controlled, enter at your own risk". My pass seems to still work, so that worked for me. Your mileage may vary.

Past the rope, things got much more difficult. Not because the terrain is particularly challenging, it's rather low-angle and simple if you just walk the ridge up to the top. What made it hard was my stubborn refusal to take my skins out, thinking the transition time would be too long to justify the benefits of skinning. That was because there were absolutely zero tracks beyond that point, and I was breaking trail myself. The first few steps were on a rocky ridge that didn't require postholing, but as I approached the false summit, things got deeper and I postholed down to my thighs more and more frequently, with regular steps being about boot-deep.

It definitely would have been faster to skin, but oh well, it's good exercise, and that way more people might be encouraged to use the tracks, since most people inbounds don't carry skins around. I suffered for about 35 minutes to gain a whole 70m or so (definitely not efficient), and enjoyed the peak views for a minute or two before clicking in for the descent, since Nick was waiting for me below, apparently equally gassed and waiting for us to head back to the car and start working.

After that, it was a simple if uneventful ski back down into the resort boundary. I traversed along the ridge atop the bowl until I found some untouched powder, stopped for a photo of the huge bomb-hole left by avalanche control, and enjoyed some fresh, steep turns back down into the resort, met up with Nick, rested while he took a work call, and we skied out after a successful day.

I have to say, I was impressed with Park City. Despite being nearly as big as Whistler, and in America, the lines were WAY shorter than at home, and we got fresh tracks the day AFTER a powder day, which was wild. Ski Patrol worked very fast to get things open, and I got a nice peak with great skiing out of the deal too. Can't ask for too much more. I'm sure I'll be back if the snow decides to abandon me at home again 😆🙃.

GPX Track + Map