Meadow Skipping – From the Top, with Feeling
Ninety-nine percent of enjoying backcountry skiing has to do with knowing where to find good, safe snow. It only takes a few times of hiking all day only to ski endless windjack to send skiers scurrying back to the resorts. The current Wasatch conditions are especially tough as the snow has barely filled in to 7,500′ and the exposed, upper elevations have high avalanche danger. Moderate angle, mid to upper elevation, north facing, shelters slopes are hard to find in the Wasatch, or in our case, just hard to get to.
What gentle slopes lack in angle can be made up for in speed to deliver the same thrill. A little EweTube video from Sunday morning:
We didn’t see any avalanches (kind of disappointing as we were looking for some), but as we crossed under the field where Brad is skiing in the photo below, the whole area ripped with a series of rolling collapses. Very exciting!
- B-Rad bouncing through the bumps.
- Rick Angell shoving some low angle pow around.
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Category: current conditions
Whoever said skiing wasn’t a contact sport ain’t never skied here now.
Of course, for me, the contact has been with dogs, not trees and collapsing snowfields, but still….
Any practical use for the whippets or just carried along out of habit?
Hi Mark – Brad and I carry them along just out of habit, but on this trip, Rick, who didn’t have them, was wishing he did as we were using them to hook trees through the forest. A tool of many uses.