WANDERLUST – Definition: “a strong desire for, or impulse to wander or travel.” The definition is apt, as I’ve had a strong impulse of wanderlust lately. Backcountry skiing is a nice way to tamp down any feelings of wandering, but limiting myself to the Wasatch Range the last 11 years has made “The Lust” come on strong. So it came to pass that me and my friends Mason and Adam (who also have urges to explore) have been making skier forays into the Bear River Range in far Northern Utah.
Fear has kept me away from the Bear Rivers all these years… fear and distance. The fear is of extreme cold, as the Bear Rivers are the site of the coldest temperature ever recorded in the contiguous United States when, on February 1st, 1985, the mercury plummeted to -69 degrees F at Peter Sinks. I also had fear of mediocre snow, being spoiled in the Central Wasatch and the blessing of lake effect. Then there is the distance – Logan is an hour-and-a-half away from Salt Lake, so I felt no reason to drive so far when the Cottonwood Canyons are in the back yard. I didn’t know what I’ve been missing.
We first heard rumor that Tony Grove in Logan Canyon is the place to be for early season turns in the Bear Rivers, so Mason and I made the trek north and pulled in at Tony Grove Lake without knowing what to expect. We were welcomed by the sight of snow covered mountains, and skier tracks coming down open bowls that fell straight to the lake shore. Excited, we skinned up and headed through the campground in search of skin tracks going up. In the snowed-in camp area, we found a track at site #16 heading into the pines. It rose sharply for a mile onto a small ridge, where several descent options on low angle slopes called Early Bowl fell away beneath our skis.
We dropped in, excited to make turns in unexplored terrain. The snow was soft, yet shallow. Powder turns over the unknown. We descended back to the bottom and skinned back up for further exploration. regaining the ridge, we headed north to see what we could see. Surrounding us were mountainous horns, revealing a jaggedness that I didn’t expect from the Bear Rivers. My mind’s eye conjured images of rounded peaks, low in elevation and void of anything resembling terrain worthy of making turns. Boy was I wrong.
Mount Magog, Naomi Peak, Cornice Ridge, and several high points in Upper Cottonwood Canyon lay to the north and west, beckoning us like mythological sirens. As we traversed north toward a nearby summit to give us an even better view, we ran into Tony Weed, the Logan area avalanche forecaster for the Utah Avalanche Center. He was skinning by with his dog, Otto, and we chatted for awhile. After picking his brain for beta on the area, and getting some good ideas for future trips, we ascended our mountain, scoped out Cornice Ridge, and skied back to the car via Miller Bowl, a highly visible ski run beneath large cliffs right above the lake. The day was an eye opener, and we made plans to return soon.
Two weeks later I was back, this time with Adam and his yurt-on-wheels truck camper. We wanted to stay for two days and really go deep into the backcountry. But with a late start on our first day, we only had time to traverse to Cornice Ridge, where we found excellent east-facing powder shots that were totally yo-yo worthy. But we saved our energy for the next day. So after staying the night in the camper with ski movies and beer, we awoke and welcomed Mason, who came back up to meet us.
With any early start, we climbed directly to the ridge between Tony Grove and Cottonwood Canyon, and skied down into unknown territory. Snow cover was thin and rocks protruded everywhere. We picked our way down, able to link a few turns here and there, but usually lightly treading on every corner and traverse. After reaching the stream bed below, we followed animal tracks toward a large sub-ridge that rose up to the top of the Bear River Divide. But gullies surrounded by cliffs guarded any and all entries that we could see, so we sniffed around until a way up was discovered. In about an hour, the divide was attained and the juicy bowls and glades we saw from afar were below us. After lunch and taking in the expansive view, we dropped in.
Sugar snow I can only describe as “fairy dust” split away beneath our ski tips as me linked crescent turns. The slope was steep and the fear of rocks waiting to pop up and attack like ski destroying whack-a-moles was ever present. But avalanche danger was low across the board and we never hit a rock, at least not catastrophically.
Hungry for more, we followed our skin track back up the ridge and traversed north to another bowl with a low angle, mellow hit. We made more soft, sugary turns and stopped short of skiing to the bottom in order to go back up to a saddle and expedite our return to Tony Grove via Cornice Ridge.
The Bear Rivers were good to us, two weeks in a row. The snow was far better than anything in the Wasatch at the time, and we found peaks with excellent skiing all within a mountain range that provided us with new perspectives, and satiated our wanderlust, at least for now.
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