No Name Bowl, located on the Park City Ridgeline, is a lesser known backcountry ski area that tends to play second fiddle to places like South Monitor or Radar Love. There’s no reason for this, however, since this little gem is just as easy to access from Big Cottonwood Canyon, features a nice pitch, wide…
Category: Backcountry
Backcountry skiing South Monitor
Park City Ridge separates Big Cottonwood Canyon from its namesake town and the Canyons Resort, and is like a backcountry ski resort in its own right. The ridge runs from east to west for over six miles from Brighton to the top of Mill Creek Canyon at a consistent elevation of 10,000 feet. Both sides…
Backcountry skiing God’s Lawnmower
It is huge. It can be seen from Big Cottonwood Canyon road. Its very presence makes every skier driving to Solitude or Brighton look up and imagine skiing that line. It’s called God’s Lawnmower, and this enormous slide path on the north face of Kessler Peak is an icon of backcountrry skiing in the Wasatch….
Backcountry skiing Lake Desolation
Lake Desolation is surrounded by quality backcountry skiing, from south-facing open glades, to tree skiing on north and east aspects. The area draws all kinds of backcountry types – from weathered telemarkers out for a long tour, to modern twin-tippers barreling down from the Canyons ski resort next door. They all come to this tiny…
Backcountry skiing Greens Basin
When it comes to backcountry ski terrain, it’s good to have those go-to places for any eventuality. On a powder day with a stable snowpack, you can ski pretty much anywhere. But sometimes the avalanche danger is too high for open slopes, or it hasn’t snowed in so long that the mountains are covered in…
Backcountry skiing Upper Days Fork
Days Fork, located in Big Cottonwood Canyon, is the place to be on a powder day when the snowpack is stable… but you have to get there early. The upper cirque of Days Fork is part of the Valhalla that is the Alta backcountry, which includes Cardiff Fork, Silver Fork, Grizzly Gulch, etc. Because of…
Backcountry skiing Flagstaff Mountain
Flagstaff Mountain (also called Flagstaff Peak) is right across the road from Alta, is very visible to everyone skiing there, and is accessed by a skintrack that begins right in town. All of this makes Flagstaff arguably one of the most crowded backcountry ski areas in the country. But that’s okay, because the terrain you…
Wasatch Touring/Alta Ski Resort Telemark and AT Demo
Buying new skis is a big decision. Like any expensive item, you want to know if a ski is right for you before pulling the trigger. However, the only way to know for sure is to try a new pair of skis out for yourself. But in order to demo skis, shops usually charge $40…
Powderwhore releases “TeleVision” trailer
A sure sign that ski season fast approaches is when ski-movie trailers start coming out to tease us with rapid-fire images of deep powder, cliff jumps and winter debauchery set to a rocking soundtrack. Like clockwork, Utah’s own Powderwhore Productions just released the preview of their 6th movie, “TeleVision.” Like all ski films, the movie…
Skiing the Pfeifferhorn on the classic Northwest Couloir
The Pfeifferhorn’s Northwest Couloir is a classic ski descent in Utah’s Wasatch Range. The line is located on one of the most iconic mountains in northern Utah and begins right from the top of the peak where it falls into a 50-degree chute that constricts to a 50-foot ice cliff that must be rappelled before…