Tag: wasatch
Banned of Brothers
Historically, those with authority, guns and money tend to get their way, so when the Utah Department of Transportation starts hinting about closing areas in the Wasatch for backcountry skiing, it is probably worth listening to them. UDOT is responsible for keeping the Little Cottonwood Canyon road open and safe from avalanches, and one of their […]
State of the Wasatch – Jan 11, 2015
In the comments from my last post I was called out as “an elitist blowhard,” so I’ll try to live up to that reputation by now kvetching about the Wasatch snowpack. It is okay… but we really need more snow, especially as this is going on the fourth sub par year in a row. We’ve been robbed. Even […]
Wasatch Backcountry Conditions – March 9
Although the Wasatch is still draggin’ ass on snow depth, skiing in the upper elevation backcountry areas has been pretty good. Last weekend we had a slight 2-4″ graupel refresher on top of a supportable crust, which made for some fun, fast powder skiing. I’ve seen a few photos of people getting after some of […]
Snowbasin Freeride Avalanche Workshop, Jan 26 -28
I took this workshop last year at Snowbird and am excited to be returning this year as an instructor. I’ll be giving two classroom presentations, teaching a ropes & knots mini clinic and partaking in all of the on-snow activities. My first presentation should be titled “Mental Case Studies in Avalanche Stupidity” as it covers […]
Wasatch BC Conditions – 12/22/2013
Executive Summary – Good and getting better. Starting yesterday, every run I took was “the best of the year” with each new one topping the last. We’ve finally started to get some base in the Wasatch, and in celebration, I took out my new skis (BD Carbon Aspect) and only got one little scratch on […]
Little Cottonwood Canyon – Hurry Up & Wait
This line of stopped cars heading up Little Cottonwood Canyon road looks, smells and feels like a traffic jam, but there’s far more to it than just that. At the heart of the problem is that the Little Cottonwood Canyon (LCC) road is a narrow, winding, steep, two-lane mountain road which is threatened by 36+ […]
Wasatch Gets Back to Basics
I think almost every run we took today would qualify as “best turns of the year to date.” Not that it was absolutely off the hook, but it was pretty damn good in a 12″ of dry fluff on a mixed base kind of way. The layers underneath have set up enough to be supportable, […]
Crossing the Cardiac Rubicon
Forget avalanches, tree wells, blinding snow storms or helicopters dropping bombs on you – one of the scariest parts of skiing in Cardiac Bowl (upper Mill D drainage) is coming across the enraged snowmobilers. But you say, I thought this entire area was non motorized, except of course for helicopters? It is, at least for […]
Wasatch Prepares for Beheading
Utah politics has positioned the Wasatch backcountry for its final death blow. Currently there is not one, not two, not even three, but NINE ski area expansions in the works. In the past these expansionist fantasies were thwarted by factors such as public input (90 plus percent are opposed), NEPA regulations, drinking water concerns, local […]
SkiLink’s Footprint
Last Thursday I had a chance to head up to Big Cottonwood Canyon and tour through the proposed Talisker SkiLink route. The actual details of this Wasatch abomination have been kept quite, or at least from public view, but by locating the beginning and end points, I was able to generate GPS waypoints of where […]
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