The Hash Pipe Couloir, Utah

It’s short, harsh, dangerous, leaves you dazed, your bases stoned, you’re likely to get burned, it smells like shit (mountain goat shit in this case) and is unrecommended. But, it’s also fun.

I’ve stood at the top of this couloir roughly five times over the last ten years and yesterday Courtney Phillips and I finally skied it, to use the term loosely.  From the top, it looks like it could be either a hidden gem… or a fiasco.  We brought a rope just in case.

Hmmm, looks good from here. The top of the Hash Pipe.

So far, so good. Forty-six degrees, southeast facing, 9,500′, narrow, rock-lined & a big question mark down below.

The dead snag/verglass/rotten rock step-over crux. Why is Courtney smiling?

Unfortunately at the end of the first nice chute section, the party was over and the line cliffed out.  Oh well.  It turned out that a Mountain Goat had the same idea and had already done a lap on the Hash Pipe (he probably has a different name for it) earlier that day.  To help show us the way, he shit all over the loose, rocky, exposed traverse, which was aromatic and fun to walk through.

There are a lot of famous traverses in the climbing world – this one, the Goat Shit Traverse, is not one of them, but it avoids a rappel.

There she blows. (that little patch of snow in the middle of the rocks)

Although I don’t think I’ll ever repeat this, I enjoy lines like these as they are fun little mysteries and you never know what you are going to find.  Eighty percent of the time they are junk, but when you uncover a gem, it makes it all worth while.  You never know until you go. It has been kind of a poopie year in the Wasatch, so lines like these are a fun distraction while the bigger stuff slowly stabilizes.

Posted by Andrew McLean on March 7th, 2010 in Backcountry and Utah

Andrew McLean

I'm Andrew and I specialize in steep skiing in remote locations. I've chased first descents on all 7 continents and I'm currently looking for a new one to add to the list. When not skiing I design mountain equipment and write about my adventures at http://straightchuter.com.