Okay, so it wasn’t summer, officially, but it sure felt like it as we headed up to Deseret Peak. It felt strange to be driving across the desert of the Tooele Valley at 2 in the morning with skis in the back and bikes on the rack. The forecast high temperature for the day...
Read more »
If you want life list hikes, Utah has them in spades. High on the list for me and a few friends had been Coyote Gulch in Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. This riparian canyon boasts a natural bridge, huge alcoves, numerous arches and a stream that flows year round. Well, after many years of...
Read more »
Spring is in full swing and the backcountry skiing is literally getting soft and bare. Despite that, there is still good skiing up there as long as you wake up early enough to make turns before the high sun turns corn snow into mush. One zone that I’ve had my eye on all year,...
Read more »
Adam was all kinds of excited. It was 3am. We were at a truck stop in Salina, Utah. The Yurt-on-Wheels was loaded up with our ski gear and we were en-route to the La Sal Mountains for some backcountry skiing on Mount Tukuhnikivatz and Mount Mellenthin. But the source of Adam’s excitement wasn’t about...
Read more »
Do you find yourself drooling during late spring storms when fresh white flakes fall from the sky by the feet, but are saddened because most resorts are closed? How are you going to visit the white room? Learn how to earn your turns safely and you can slide around Wasangeles until the trails turn...
Read more »
It’s always a gamble when your first run of the season is a solid Class IV and V river, but there’s no better place to do it than the Black Canyon of the Bear River in Grace, Idaho. While the Wasatch were still getting hammered with snow, the floodgates to the Grace Dam opened...
Read more »
Spring in Southern Utah is the best time of year for outdoor adventure. Sure, winter is better for skiing, fall is arguably best for mountain biking and climbing, but spring is the only time you can do it all at once. We had one such trip of variety when we went backcountry skiing, mountain...
Read more »
I’m not a religious man, except when it comes to the outdoors. Sure it’s a common phrase, but to say that the mountain is my church, well, by Ullr that’s the truth. So on Easter Sunday, instead of sitting in a stuffy chapel on hard benches, we ascended into the cathedral of Mount Nebo...
Read more »
There’s a lot of big mountains with tons of skiable vertical in Utah, and much of it lies outside the Central Wasatch. We’ve been taking trips up north to the Bear River Mountains around Logan for some exploratory backcountry skiing, and every time, we’ve come away impressed with the terrain there. But on a...
Read more »
There are many classic backcountry ski descents in the Central Wasatch. Routes like the South Face of Superior, the Pfeifferhorn’s Northwest Couloir, and Coalpit Headwall come to mind. Well, Bonkers most certainly belongs on that list. This massive ramp of snow is located in Broads Fork, and features a 2,500 foot ski or snowboard...
Read more »
