The Abajo Mountains are the red-headed step child of southeastern Utah’s ranges. Everyone gives their love to the La Sal Mountains, and for good reason; they’re beautiful, rugged, offer world-class backcountry skiing, and are darlings of nature photographers as they provide a snow capped backdrop to red rock scenery shots. Meanwhile, the Abajo Mountains (also called the Blue Mountains by locals) are ignored. Well, I’m here to tell you that despite their lesser stature, the Abajo are totally worth a visit, especially if you’re looking for a remote range where you can ski powder without ever seeing another person.
The third weekend of November, 2013, saw a massive autumn storm plow through Arizona and Southern Utah, dropping 2-3 feet of snow in the mountains. Northern Utah, however, was dinking around with a high-pressure system and offerings of man-made snow. So myself, along with Adam Symonds and Jon Strickland, loaded up Adam’s “Yurt on Wheels” and headed south in search of powder.
The Abajo Mountains are located just west of the town of Monticello, so it’s a bit of a haul to get there. After 5 hours of driving, we pulled up to a parking lot at the end of the road, near the base of the Old Blue Mountain ski resort. This ghost resort once catered to local skiers with a few cut runs and a surface lift, but had shut down decades ago. Much of it still remains, however, as the old lift shacks, cables and ski runs are still there, waiting to be skied once again. We were happy to oblige. With skins on skis, we hiked up the old run to the top of the resort, then kept going up into the trees. But the late-afternoon start forced us to turn around, so we headed back down.
Looking for a descent that wasn’t marred by snowmobile tracks, we made turns on soft, deep, untracked powder through the narrow lift line. The turns were tight and we had to be very careful not to trip up on the low cable. I hit it once and slid down like a park rat on a sick rail slide. Skiing the Old Blue Mountain ski resort was a fast and fun tour that was perfect for a quick shot before sundown.
The next morning we woke early on a mission to ski Abajo Peak. The range’s namesake peak is also the highest, so we were determined to stand atop the summit. The day was bluebird and calm as we skinned up the North Creek Road. A few snowmobile tracks made the going easy as we didn’t have to break trail for 4 miles to Cooley Pass. Once there, we left the road and headed into the pine trees where deep, soft snow abounded. A thick layer of surface hoar covered the entire aspect, and we discovered a wide glade that made us salivate.
But the summit was the goal, so we pushed on. A few switchbacks later, we hit the top of the divide, then traversed to the summit of Abajo Peak. The top is littered with dozens of communications towers, so the remote, backcountry experience is totally destroyed here. But the views of southeastern Utah’s desert, covered in fog, was unbeatable. The La Sal Mountains to the north, the San Juans in Colorado, and the Henry Mountains to the west all peaked up through the mist like battleships at sea. After lunch and a good soaking in the sun, we skied down to the lip above the southeastern face.
Instead of ski that face, which was thin and rocky, Jon and I elected to stay on the summit while Adam pulled out his speed wing. With a rush of air into fabric, he quickly flew aloft above the mountain and ski-flew down to the bottom in under 20 seconds. All Jon and I could do was wait as Adam skinned back to us. Luckily we had a flask of whiskey to keep us occupied. After Adam rejoined us, we traversed around to the north side and skied that wonderful, powder-filled glade. The snow was a week old, yet remained creamy – protected in the tall pines. The glade was almost like a cut ski run as it descended into a gully where we played on terrain features in a natural halfpipe. At the bottom, we rejoined North Creek Road and quickly coasted back to the parking lot.
Stoked on the snow conditions and our on-the-spot decision to come to the Abajo Mountains, we hatched a plan to ski Horsehead Peak on our final day. The mountain is located just north of Abajo Peak, and is named after a patch of pine trees and snow field that, from a distance, looks like a horse head. It’s best seen from a distance, like in town so the picture below doesn’t do it justice. Nevertheless, we got another early morning start and skinned once again up North Creek Road.
The skin up the road was shorter than Abajo Peak as we left it halfway up after crossing the creek. A long and steep skin track up a gully west of the peak made an efficient ascent route to the top, which was made even better by its exposure to the sun. After about three hours of work, blistered, tired and sore, we made it to the rocky summit of Horsehead Peak.
After a few beers, we geared up and headed for the “horsehead.” But decent snow drew us skier’s left of the pine forest, where we found an uninterrupted, 2,000-foot run that went all the way to the canyon bottom. The snow was wind affected in a few places but I could make wide, fast turns that made this first backcountry trip of the season very fine indeed.
Halfway down the run, we stopped to regroup and looked down at the fog that covered the entire state below. Here, high above the inversion, warm in the sun, completely alone, caught up in the moment of skiing a huge line on a remote mountain, we were happy. They may not get much love from backcountry skiers, but on this trip, the Abajo Mountains became our darlings.